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    Stories Ages 3–4 Bumble’s Garden Band

    Picture story · read aloud

    Bumble’s Garden Band

    Ages 3–4 2-min read Bugs and garden

    Bumble the bee starts a garden band, and Tiny Ant, who can only squeak, discovers a sound all her own.

    Bumble’s Garden Band: bumble the bee flying happily among big colourful garden flowers on a sunny morning

    Every morning, Bumble the bee hummed a happy tune. Hmmm-hmmm-HMMM!

    “Let’s start a garden band!” said Bumble. Cricket came with his chirp: cree-cree! Ladybird came with her tap-dancing feet: tippy-tap!

    Bumble’s Garden Band: bumble, Cricket and Ladybird together on a leaf, with Tiny Ant looking up at them shyly from the ground

    Tiny Ant wanted to play too. She opened her mouth to sing… but only a teeny-tiny squeak came out.

    “I’m too small to make music,” said Tiny Ant, and she went to sit under a leaf.

    Bumble’s Garden Band: tiny Ant sitting under a big green leaf as raindrops land on the leaf and on an upturned clay flowerpot

    Drip… drop… A raindrop fell on Tiny Ant’s leaf. Plink! Another fell on a flowerpot. Plonk!

    Tiny Ant’s eyes went wide. She tapped the leaf: plink! She tapped the flowerpot: plonk! She shook a seed pod: shaka-shaka!

    Bumble’s Garden Band: tiny Ant marching proudly carrying a leaf drum, a tiny flowerpot and a seed-pod shaker

    Tiny Ant marched back to the band with her leaf drum, her flowerpot bell and her seed shaker.

    Hmmm, cree-cree, tippy-tap, PLINK-PLONK, shaka-shaka! It was the best band the garden had ever heard.

    Bumble’s Garden Band: the whole garden band playing together, Bumble, Cricket, Ladybird and Tiny Ant drumming, butterflies dancing above the flowers

    The flowers swayed. The butterflies danced. And Tiny Ant played the loudest little drum of all.

    The End

    Cover of the Bumble’s Garden Band printable foldable mini-book

    Free printable mini-book

    Turn Bumble’s Garden Band into a little 8-page book to keep. Print one sheet, make one small cut and fold it up in about 3 minutes.

    Download A4 (PDF)
    Download US Letter (PDF)

    Saving ink? Printer-friendly version: A4 · US Letter

    How to fold: fold guide (A4) · fold guide (US Letter) · watch the 50-second video

    Print at 100% (“Actual size”), landscape, on one side. Full colour PDF · A4 1.0 MB · Letter 1.1 MB

    For grown-ups

    Talk about it

    After reading, try one or two of these. There are no wrong answers.

    1. What sound did each bug make in the band?
    2. How did Tiny Ant find her own way to make music?
    3. What could you use at home to make a drum?

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