Draw a Bee Tracing and Coloring Sheet (Toddlers and Preschool Activity)

This printable draw a bee tracing and coloring sheet gives preschool and kindergarten children a guided bee outline to trace and color, building pencil control, hand-eye coordination and other pre-writing skills.

Timed perfectly for World Bee Day on May 20, it’s a no-prep activity that turns a simple coloring page into a focused fine motor workout!

Did you know that honeybees do something pretty extraordinary to share directions with each other – they dance. Known as the “waggle dance,” this wiggling, figure-eight routine tells other bees exactly where to find food. According to Smithsonian Magazine, when a worker bee finds a great patch of flowers, she flies back to the hive and performs the dance to pass on the location.

Pretty cool!

If your little ones love coloring, you can check out more cool coloring pages here.

What Skills Can Your kids Learn When Tracing and Coloring?

Now you may not think it, but there’s actually quite a lot of skills that can be practiced and developed when your children are happily coloring away.

This woodland animal coloring page can help your children practice and develop their writing skills, such as:

• Hand-eye coordination – to be able to understand what they are seeing and get their hands to go where they want them to go
• Hand and finger strength – the ability to be able to apply enough pressure to make marks on the page and hold the pencil firmly
• Hand dominance – developing and strengthening the skill of one of their hands
• Crossing the mid-line – this is the ability to cross the imaginary line running down the center of your body – it means they won’t have to switch hands if they want to color on the other side of the page
• Pencil grip and control – holding the marker correctly to allow for a full and fluid range of movement

These are all vital skills that will set them up to be brilliant at writing in the future! But let’s not forget:

• Creativity and color recognition – Once the tracing is done, children make their own color choices. What color will the stripes be? Will the wings be transparent (maybe a light blue) or rainbow? This open-ended creative phase supports self-expression and builds color vocabulary.
• Focus and self-regulation – Tracing a shape neatly takes concentration. Sticking with a task, working carefully and seeing it through to the end helps to build self-regulation skills.

And I’m sure as anyone out there who’s ever picked up an ‘adult’ coloring book – they can also be a great way to relax and have a moment of calm.

How To Prepare This Simple Draw a Bee Printable

First you need to download it by clicking on the download box at the bottom of the page.

Not a member yet – what are you waiting for? Become a member and get INSTANT access to all the awesome activities today!

Then print it out.

That’s pretty much it – just need to grab some coloring pencils, pens or crayons and they’re good to go!

They’ll need to carefully follow the dotted line to finish the bee drawing, then they can color it in.

Some Other Ways You Could Use This Draw a Bee Page

Here are some ways to deepen the experience depending on your little learner:

Laminate It

Print and laminate the sheet, then let children trace the dashed lines with a dry-erase marker and wipe it clean to start again. This turns a single-use printable into a reusable fine motor station that can sit in a morning tub or center for weeks.

Finger Trace First

Before any pencil or marker comes out, ask children to use their index finger to trace the dashed lines in the air above the page, then on the page itself. This pre-tracing step helps children plan the route their pencils will take in a moment.

Color-by-Part Challenge

Rather than letting children color freely, call out one body part at a time and name a color for it – “Color the wings yellow!” – then give them thirty seconds before the next instruction. This keeps the experience brisk and game-like, while quietly building listening and instruction following skills, and body-part vocabulary (wings, antennae, abdomen, stripes etc.). It can be run as a whole-group activity with each child working on their own sheet.

The Bee Body Vocabulary Walk

Before children start tracing, sit with them and name the parts of the bee on the page – head, eyes, antennae, wings, abdomen, stinger. Point to each one and say the word together. Then, as they trace, see if they can recall the parts. This turns the activity into a vocabulary-building momen, and sets children up to talk confidently about bees during World Bee Day discussions. If you want to continue the bee theme with a math angle, the Bee Counting Game pairs really nicely after this one.

However you use this bee tracing sheet, I hope your little learners enjoy every stripe of it.

Enjoy and let’s nurture those neurons!