Our bee unit study has definitely been one of the favorites of my 3½-year-old granddaughter, Zoey. She’s been fascinated by all the activities and has loved all the books we’ve read. One of her favorite activities is to have the Safari Ltd. honeybee land on one of us, walk around on the person (who’s standing perfectly still), and then fly away. We have to do that daily! All our bee activities and books are helping Zoey develop safe practices and have less fear around bees. They’re also adding interest to work with a variety of concepts.
Our latest activity, placing bee erasers on a honeybee do-a-dot printable, was another activity Zoey really enjoyed.
Montessori-Inspired Printables at Living Montessori Now
My daughter, Christina (a former Montessori child), and I are partnering to bring you a series of Montessori-inspired printables. The printables are typically themed and use a number of Montessori principles (although you don’t need to be a Montessori teacher or homeschooler to use them):
- They use isolation of quality.
- They use photographs or realistic images to emphasize reality. Whenever I can, I’ll tell you the specific name of the object or animal featured. Today’s printable emphasizes the name honeybee plus adds the Latin name “Apis mellifera” on the credits page.
- They typically use traditional Montessori colors such as red for consonants and blue for vowels.
- They use lowercase letters, which are what we introduce letter sounds with in Montessori education. (Children tend to pick up the uppercase letters without being introduced if they’re introduced to the lowercase letter sounds.)
- They often feature themed printable versions of Montessori materials.
Free Honeybee Do-a-Dot Printable for the Letter H
To download the honeybee do-a-dot printable, click here and then click on the file image in the upper right corner of the PDF to save to your computer (just choose where you want it saved).
Montessori-Inspired Activities Using the Honeybee Do-a-Dot Printable
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links (at no cost to you).
Honeybee Do-a-Dot Letter H Tray with Bee Erasers
I used a Multicraft tray and bee erasers. These are actually bumblebee erasers, but we just called them bees. Even though they’re not honeybees, I like them because they’re cute, feel good, and are a great price. They also arrive quickly and have 144 in the pack … enough for all sorts of activities. You’ll need 22 bees (or whatever you use) for the dots on the letter “h.” I also added /h/ for honey and honeycomb font printable from our subscriber freebie bee pack. At other times, I’ll have a transfer activity with tools such as quick sticks, sugar tongs, or toast tong.
You could add a tracing activity to the printable. If you laminate your printable, you can use an erasable crayon like the Melissa & Doug Learning Mat Crayons or Crayola Erasable Crayons. For a 2-year-old or other young preschooler who’s not ready to write letters, you can just leave off the crayons.
Honeybee Do-a-Dot Tray with Bee Erasers
Zoey loves the bee erasers. She carefully lined up all the bees on the dots, counted them, and then did the activity again.
(Note: Zoey was wearing her yellow Easter dress the day I introduced the honeybee do-a-dot printable. So she matched her bee work!)
If you want to know how to introduce the letter sound for h, check out my post on how to teach letter sounds using Montessori principles.
More Bee and Other Insect Posts
- Free Honeybee Do-a-Dot Printable (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
- Free Honeybee Cutting Strips (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
- Free Noisy Insect Printables and Montessori-Inspired Noisy Insect Activities
- Free Insect Sounds, Songs, and Rhymes for Circle Time
- Free Noisy Insect Cutting Strips (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
Here are links to many more insect posts:
- Montessori-Inspired Insect Unit
- Free Ladybug Printables and Montessori-Inspired Ladybug Activities
- Montessori-Inspired Caterpillar-Butterfly Unit
- Montessori-Inspired Life Cycle Activities
- Free Butterfly Printables and Montessori-Inspired Butterfly Activities
- Free Butterfly Cutting Strips (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
- Butterfly Sensory Bin with Scavenger Hunt and Life Cycle Activities {Free Printables}
- Montessori-Inspired Spring Activities with Spielgaben {Free Printables}
- Free Butterfly Do-a-Dot Printable (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
- Free Ant Printables and Montessori-Inspired Ant Activities
- Free Ant Do-a-Dot Printable (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download
- Free Ant Cutting Strips (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
- Ant Sensory Bin with Scavenger Hunt and Life Cycle Activities
- The Best Ant Books for Kids
- Ants on a Log Fun Food Preparation for Preschoolers
- Insect Unit Study Pinterest Board
Montessori-Inspired Packs – Subscriber Freebies
Don’t miss our themed monthly packs! You’ll get the link and password for the Living Montessori Now subscriber library with the current pack and all the past monthly packs if you subscribe to the Living Montessori Now weekly newsletter!
Free Do-a-Dot Printables and Ideas for Using Them
I love the versatility of do-a-dot printables! If you’re doing a month-long theme, you could easily change out the type of do-a-dot activity weekly to add interest. Here are four ideas of hands-on activities for any of our do-a-dot printables from my frog do-a-dot printable post (see post for details and materials used).
Just click on an image to go to the post with the related free printable!
Note: I’ve arranged the gallery in alphabetical order, although some posts have two do-a-dot printables (and two different letters). Also, I don’t introduce letters in alphabetical order. You can find out the order in which I introduce letter sounds here. I deviate from that order for our unit studies, though, and focus on a letter that’s simply related to our unit. That’s in addition to our other letter work.
You can see all our free do-a-dot printables with the latest at the top here.
If this is your first time visiting Living Montessori Now, welcome! If you haven’t already, please join us on our Living Montessori Now Facebook page where you’ll find a Free Printable of the Day and lots of inspiration and ideas for parenting and teaching! And please follow me on Instagram, Pinterest (lots of Montessori-, holiday-, and theme-related boards), and YouTube. While you’re here, please check out the Living Montessori Now shop.
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