Friend of Animals: Busy Bees

Friend of Animals is a required award for Busy Bee Investiture. The purpose of this award is to learn about the amazing animals God created in our world. Although all animals are welcome here, we are especially focused on the animals that live as our neighbors. This is a lengthy award and will likely take several meetings to compete all of the requirements. I love the variety of activities in this award. There are multiple games, two or a three crafts, discussion time, and even an opportunity for a field trip.

Care for Animals

Fulfills Requirement #1

Option 1: Care for a Family Pet

If all of your Busy Bees have a family pet, this requirement is fairly simple. They should take care of their pet for four weeks – feeding it and giving it fresh water. They can brush their pet and give it a bath or clean its bed/home.

Option 2: Care for the Birds

I usually have some kids who don’t have a family pet, so I use the second option (“Put out scraps or seeds for birds or animals in your neighborhood. Identify creatures that eat these scraps. Draw and color pictures of them.”) I would use caution with this one. Please do not encourage your adventurers to leave bread out for the birds. Bread isn’t good for them. We have made simple pinecone bird feeders in the past. You can find instructions here. I like the idea of this bird feeder made with an apple slice – I think it might be easier to add peanut butter to this than a pinecone.

Option 3: Care for a Shelter Animal (Service Project!)

In my area, we are dealing with Bird Flu (again). I don’t want to add to the problem with bird feeders, so we needed to find another option to care for animals – without putting them at risk. My local Humane Society needs cat toys! These are a simple project of braiding 1 inch strips of fleece. Caring for animals AND doing a community service project? Yes, please! (Check with your local animal shelter before making anything for them.)

To create these simple braided cat toys, cut strips of fleece fabric in one inch strips 18-24 inches long. Tie three strips together (an overhand knot works great). Braid until you have only two inches left. Finish with another knot. I washed the fleece, and my resident TLT and I cut it into strips before our meeting. Braiding is easier with a weight holding the beginning down(or a parent holding it) to provide some resistance. Every kid who has a kitty friend at home was encouraged to make one for their buddy in addition to a couple for the Humane Society.

At My Bird Feeder

Although we won’t be making bird feeders this year, I do still want discuss and identify the animals who are most likely to show up at a bird feeder. I created picture cards of the animals who visit my feeder (when it’s up) during the winter/early spring. The cards are in the printable pack below, and I also have a Canva file for you, so you can modify it to fit your area and time of year. (Make a copy first so you can edit it. If you need help with this process, check out this video.)

Animals in My Neighborhood

Fulfills Requirement #2

Send your Busy Bees home to spy on the neighborhood “wildlife.” I have a printable to help them track their wildlife (and not so wild) spottings. The printable uses both pictures and words and is very pre-reader friendly. Discuss the animals in each other’s neighborhoods at the following meeting.

Animal Home Match

Fulfills Requirement #3

I hid photographs of animals around the room for the kids to find. After they discovered an animal, they matched it to it’s correct home. I hid one full set of animals per Busy Bee, and had one set of animal homes for the class. Several of the animals have multiple possible homes. The printable for this activity is in the printable pack at the end of this post. There is an optional yellow background page for the back of the cards.

The Leader’s Guide suggested sharing animal factoids with the Busy Bees. I added an interesting factoid about each animal on the animal card. However, I noticed my class was too busy searching for cards and had no interest in reading the cards during their search. I shared a few interesting factoids with the kids, but I found that the best time to share this information with them was at the next meeting when we played Animal Bingo.

Animal Masks

Fulfills Requirement #4

Making animal masks is always a popular activity in Adventurers! You can find mask printables here, here, or on my Pinterest board.

Animal Bingo

Fulfills Requirement #5

My kids loved playing Animal Bingo! If we had had enough time, we would have played it a few times. (Alas, our meetings are on the short side this year..)

The animals are the same as the animals in the Animal Home Match activity. I used the Animal Home Match animal cards as my calling cards. We used bingo counting chips to mark the spaces. You could also write on the boards if you don’t want to reuse them. You’ll find the Bingo boards in the printable pack at the end of this post.

There are seven different Bingo boards, but all seven use the same pictures. If you choose to play the game until the entire board is filled, everyone will finish the game on the same round. I created a special Busy Bee Helper Space. As soon as one player gets BINGO (one filled row across, down, or diagonal), the helper space becomes a free square. I found this softened the sometimes strong emotions that come when someone else gets to yell BINGO first.

Field Trip or Make an Animal

Fulfills Requirement #6

The current award requirements suggest a field trip to see animals (zoo, farmyard, kennel, aviary, museum, or pet shop). Seeing the animals you are learning about is great idea. Unfortunately, it’s not always practical for a club. An older set of requirements suggested a field trip or making a stuffed animal. We made tiny stuffed cats. I love this project. Most Busy Bees haven’t used a needle and thread yet, and it’s fun teaching them new skills. The kids are always so proud of their new little friend. I created a video to show you the tricks I use to make this go more smoothly.

Supplies:

• Felt: Check your local craft store for sheets of felt (not the stiffened felt) or yards if you prefer. Wool blend felt is nicer and lasts longer, but eco-felt/polyester is also fine. I use eco-felt for this project.
• Needles: Chenille No. 20
• Needle Threaders (Optional, but helpful)
• Six-Strand DMC Floss – I use three of the six strands (Your local craft store will likely have a much better price than Amazon.)
• Plastic Floss Bobbins (Optional)

Closing Discussion

Fulfills Requirement #7

On what day of creation did God create the animal you cared for? You could also discuss what day God created the animals you spotted while doing this award.

Friend of Animals Printables

You made it all the way to the end of this lengthly post! Awesome. Leave a comment and tell me what your favorite animal is.