Curriculum Project Title: Bee Yourself

Written by: Lauren Todd (ltodd1@eastern.edu)

Lesson Title: A Hive is a Home
Lesson No. 2 of 4

Teacher: Lauren Todd + one additional teaching artist

Project Description/Overview:
This workshop series Bee Yourself focuses on enhancing participants hope for their futures,
helping each child identify and create a safe space, express his or her creativity, develop
mastery of artistic skills, cultivate positive self-image, and identify and strengthen protective
factors to promote resilience. These interactive and expressive art experiences are intended
for children who have experienced trauma.
In this lesson, the second in the series, the lesson and metaphor revolve around the themes
of safe space, creativity, and interconnectedness. The children will be led through a ritual
welcome activity (the Busy Bee Waggle Dance, a call-and-response song with movement
that was created with improvised choreography in Lesson No. 1), an experiential introductory
activity with a built-in relaxation exercise, mini lesson on bee hives, followed by an art
experience incorporating a metaphor, a closing time for sharing with the group, and ending
with a ritual closing exercise.
The group will involve 10 male and female youth (ages 5-10) who are currently living at a
shelter because they are homeless. Two teaching-artists will facilitate each class.
Goal:
To increase hope and resilience for traumatized homeless children through a hands-on art
experience that draws on their creativity and teaches them how to create their own safe
space out of protective factors.
Message/theme/metaphor:
Hives are like safe spaces for bees. You are a like a hard-working bee who depends on the
other bees in your community to live and be safe.
Hives // safe spaces (protective factor)
Other bees in hive // people who make you feel safe, community support (protective factors)
Creating honeycomb for hive // motivation and mastery of skill, creativity, achieving goals
(protective factors, way- and will-power thinking)
Lesson Objectives/Goal Areas

Develop childrens ability to create and utilize safe spaces (social, spiritual)

Develop childrens creativity and artistic skills (artistic)

Increase childrens knowledge of the natural world (academic)

Increase childrens resiliency factors (social, spiritual)

Measurable outcomes
By the end of the lesson:
-

100% of children will have created their own personalized honeycomb sit upon

90% of children will be able repeat a fact about the function of honeybee hives

100% of children will be able to share about what or who gives them a sense of safety
and home

Lesson Breakdown (1 hour total):

1. Welcome & Opening Ritual (10 minutes)
Greet children (bees) at the threshold (doorway) and welcome them individually into the
classroom space while gentle classical music is playing. Ask the children to form a circle for
the opening song and movement activity, the Busy Bee Waggle Song. The children will have
had experience with this song during the previous lesson, but they will need a reminder of
their role in the song. As soft, ambient classical or jazz music plays at a medium volume in
the background, children will take turns going clockwise around the circle. One teaching artist
goes first as an example, following the script and leading the students in the call-andresponse:
Child: Buzz! Buzz! My name is ______, and Im a _______bee! (insert name, then insert
adjective, while child creates a small movement or dance to accompany their description,
e.g. My name is Lauren, and Im an excited bee!)
Teacher: Whos that bee?
Everyone: Thats ______, and hes/shes a(n) ______ bee! (everyone mimics the
movement)
The call-and-response Busy Bee Waggle Song continues until each person has had a turn.
2. Experiential Introductory Activity/Relaxation Exercise (5 minutes)
Ask the children to pretend that they are bees have them stand with their arms bent fully to

represent wings. Explain that the children, in silence and with their hands to themselves, will
slowly buzz around the room to large images of flowers placed sporadically around the
classroom space to gather nectar. The proper way to gather nectar is to take turns
pretending to rub their noses on the flowers. Play the mash-up of the recordings of Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakovs Flight of the Bumblebee and Debussys Claire de Lune (the edited
recordings will fluidly alternate snippets of each song). The teaching artists model the activity
and the children join in their movements and speed should mimic the alternating tempo and
energy of the musical selections. As the music makes a final transition to a long, slow close
of Claire de Lune, teachers should encourage the children to sit or lie down in a comfortable
position and take deep, focused breaths. When the music ends, children should be sitting on
the floor, relaxed and ready for the mini-lecture. The children have released energy and are
prepared for the lesson and art activity which requires calm focus for reflection.
3. Mini Lecture (10 minutes)
Ask students to share some facts they learned during the previous class about a bees
special body (Lesson No. 1 was about bee anatomy and how their uniqueness helps them to
survive in the wild).
Arts-based inquiry: Present a picture of a hexagonal honeycomb pattern and ask them to
describe what they see Shapes? Pattern? Repetition? What does it remind you of?
(Assume that one student will associate the picture with honeybees, if not, offer this
suggestion.) What do you already know about where bees live? What is the special name
given to their home? Has anyone ever seen a hive? Why do we need to be careful around
honeybee hives? What is made in the hive that you and I like to eat as a sugary, gooey
treat?
Show picture of hive (inside and outside) and share facts (from
http://www.orkin.com/stinging-pests/bees/honey-bees/ ):
- Like some other bee species, honey bees are social and live in colonies numbering in the
thousands.
- In the wild, honey bee hives are often located in the holes of trees and on rock crevices.
- The hive is made from wax from the abdominal glands of worker honey bees. Workers
sweep up a few flakes of wax from their abdomens and chew these flakes until the wax
becomes soft. Workers then mold the wax and use it in making honeycomb cells to form the
hive.
- Unlike other bee species, honey bees do not hibernate during cold periods. Instead, they
remain inside the nests huddled closely together, sharing body heat and feeding on stored
food supplies.

4. Main Lesson (30 minutes)

Reflection & Discussion
We just learned that honeybees have a special safe place where they live and make honey
with other honeybees. When the bees are in their hive, they are protected from rain, wind,
and other dangers. Hives are safe spaces for bees because they are out of harms way, are
close to other honeybees, and have the support of their community. We humans cant fit in
hives because we are too big. Close your eyes and think: What are places where you feel
safe? What people you know or family members make you feel safe and sound? What
objects make you feel good and secure? (Teacher can offer examples of each to facilitate
childrens reflection).* What does your hive look like? What is in it? Who is in it with you?
* If the child cannot independently think of something on their own, the teaching artist can
work with them to think of a person with whom they feel a sense of safety, an object to
which they feel an attachment (e.g. a favorite, blanket, toy), a pleasurable experience
(e.g. eating a favorite meal), or physical place where they feel protected (e.g.
grandmothers house, church, shelter).
Introduce the Metaphor
Hives are like safe spaces for bees. You are a like a hard-working bee who depends on the
other bees in your community to live and be safe. Instruct children to quietly buzz over to
the craft table and explain that they will be creating a section of their own hives.
Art Activity
Children will given one piece of canvas and assorted colored markers to share. Reinforce the
fact that the shape of the canvas piece is the same 6-sided shape as what they saw in the
honeycomb, a hexagon. Instruct them to draw the people, things, places, and experiences
that make them feel safe. They can also write words in addition to drawing images. They are
defining and drawing their safe space. Teachers may need to assist individuals depending on
their needs. Encourage them to fill the entire surface with imagery and words and let them
know that this piece work is just one important piece in their final art project.
When they are finished their drawings, present children with the second piece of canvas, the
foam padding, and one pre-cut piece of yarn. The teacher will explain that they will be
making a sit-upon that will be the childrens safe space while they are in the classroom and

will function as a comfortable pad to sit on for future lessons. This sit-upons will be used in all
subsequent lessons to reinforce the idea of safe spaces (children will also sit on them if they
need a time-out, need to be taught physical boundaries, etc). Encourage children to sit on
their honeycomb sit-upons to feel secure in a personal space within the classroom.
The teacher will show the class how to assemble the sit-upon by breaking down into simple
steps they can follow (verbal instruction while demonstrating). First, children will take a small
piece of masking tape and will wrap it around the tip of one end of the yarn piece to make it
easier to thread into the holes. Tie a large knot on the opposite end (large enough to not be
pulled through the hole). Then they will assemble the pieces: blank canvas piece on the
bottom, foam pad next, then the canvas with their safe spaces drawings on top (with images
visible, facing up). All sides should match up so that they can thread the yarn through the
holes to sew up the sides. When all sides are sewed up, make a final knot to secure the
pieces so that the foam is sandwiched tightly between the outer, canvas pieces.* Have
children try on their own sit-upons.
*Children, especially the youngest, may need assistance taping the tip, making knots, and
threading the yarn through the holes.
When all the children have completed creating their honeycomb sit-upon, have them arrange
all of their sit-upons on the floor with the edges touching other sit-upons this creates a
larger, unified rug that resembles a honeycomb. Explain the honeycomb as a metaphor for
interconnectedness children are separate and unique on their own sit-upon (a piece of a
honeycomb), yet they are connected to others in a larger community (the hive). Have the
students sit together on their group honeycomb and review and summarize the metaphors
and the art experience with the children.
Review metaphor by asking group: How is hive like a safe space for bees? What are the
things in the hive that make the bee feel safe? What are the things, or who are the people,
that make you feel protected in your hive your safe space? If you feel unsafe, do you
know where to go, or who to go to, to make you feel safe? Introduce and encourage the
children to language that promotes resilience with statements such as: I have I am I
can
Summarize: Hives are like safe spaces for bees. You are a like a hard-working bee who
depends on the other bees in your community to live and be safe.
5. Closing Ritual (5 minutes)

Children stand in a circle and sing the It Feels Good to Bee Me song (song lyrics are on a
poster so children can sing along) that was first introduced to them during Lesson No. 1. One
teacher stands at the threshold to assure children are safely escorted out with their parent or
guardian and to offer a high-five to thank them for their attendance and participation.

Materials, Supplies, Supplementary Materials

Colored markers

Masking tape

Brightly colored yarn (pre-cut into 2 long

strings)

20 pre-cut pieces of lightweight canvas,

uniformly shaped as hexagons (about 18
diameter) with holes punched along the outer
edge every 1.5

Easy-listening classical or jazz music

playlist

10 pieces of pre-cut 1 thick foam padding in

same shape as hexagons

Song: Flight of the Bumblebee, Nikolai

Rimsky-Korsakov

Song: Claire de Lune, Claude Debussy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P4zJT7jnfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=44YyT1IkkL4
5 Large pictures of flowers (at least 8.5 x
11)

Picture of honeycomb hexagonal pattern (or

actual honeycomb), pictures of beehives