Buzz buzz

Mother in law told him about how bees can sting when they saw a bee in the neighbourhood park. Now everytime he sees a picture of a bee, he will curl his little fingers up together and peck his legs to show us how a bee will sting. Cute thing. He loves these little bees and we just got to make a Bumble Bees art board and put it up on our wall.

Here's what we used:

A cute bumble bee sticker (I got this from Spotlight)

Some paper and felt flowers (They are leftover from another project. You can find them at your local craft shops. Or really try using recycled materials!)

And basic stationery

Here's how I conducted this craft activity. I usually have a pre-session to connect what he is learning to the real world. So he has seen a bee in the park and first I'll try to link that real bee to a picture. I showed him a page in a book with pictures of bees, told him that these are bees and sang him a bumble bee song. Yup, that classic Xiao Mi Feng song. Then I picked up a second book also with pictures of bees and asked him: Where is bumble bee? That's a picture to picture link if he could point out the bees which he did! Great job baby! And we are ready to move on to the hands on activity.

I gave him my bag of flowers and he picked out some flowers.  I put double side tape on the back of the flowers and passed them back to him. I showed him how to paste the flowers on the art board which he quickly followed suit. He started playing with the flowers and wasn't interested in pasting them on the board which is perfectly fine for me. It's all part of the experience! The highlight of the activity is the bumble bee stickers, which I will only take out halfway through the session. That's when his attention is dwindling and these cute stickers will come in just in time to get his attention back. Again I showed him how to remove the stickers and paste them on the board. All of these actions are great to develop the toddlers' fine motor skills. 

And here's the completed bumble bee art board! It didn't remain in this pretty state for too long. Xue took a liking in the cute bees and flowers and peeled them off and mummy has been picking up the flowers and bees and salvaging the art board. 

How long did the activity last? The pre-session was around 10 minutes and the craft session lasted around 20 minutes before he decided he was done with sticking stuffs. I got to be honest here, Xue didn't sit through the whole session. At some points, he will be distracted and walk off and I won't force him to do the activity if he doesn't want to. I just let him know that mummy's going to continue to work on this bumble bee art board and he will return to check out what I'm doing and join me if he's interested again. I'll leave the stickers and the art board on his shelf and encourage him to complete his art board on other days. 

Some tips if you like to try this with your tots: For all my craft activities with Xue, there are some stuffs that I prepare before the session. Like backing the paper with a foam board which makes a sturdier base for Xue to stick on his stickers. And doing up the border with washi tape. I try to leave most things undone and only do them together with Xue. So even if he can't do it now, like dispensing glue, he's watching as I'm doing it. This little boy learns a lot by watching! After a few sessions, he will pick up my tools and imitate my actions like how I will roll my double side tape dispenser on the paper. I do all the cutting during my preparation time (when Xue is asleep) as I'm uncomfortable with him handling scissors now. The last thing I want is for him to get all upset during our craft session because I forbid him to touch the scissors.

All in all, I think this is a pretty good activity for young tots and after that, you get a cute wall art!