I am not going to pretend to like bugs. I do not.
However, I have to admit, that for children, bugs are exciting and intriguing.
I first realized this when I was a preschool teacher and our themes were chosen for us. When I saw “bugs” on the list, I debated calling in sick for the whole week so I wouldn’t have to deal with bugs. I seriously dislike bugs and always have. However, I decided to be an adult and tackle this difficult-for-me theme and it was an enlightening experience. The children were so full of an electric enthusiasm that it was mystifying. Thus began my yearly theme of “bugs” that I continued while homeschooling my own children and running my in-home daycare.
I will share with you some of the activities that I incorporated into my annual “bug” theme.
Activities with bugs!
Like I said, I was working in a preschool when I explored bugs with kiddos for the first time. The preschool was in the basement of a pretty old and somewhat scary building.
I decided to start our week by going on an indoor bug hunt.
Previously, I had collected small coffee cans and gave each child one to decorate while I read them a book about bugs.
I bought all of the kids these cute little yellow helmet-type hats from a local dollar store and some flashlights.
After they decorated their “bug catchers” and I’d read them a book, we put on our “bug searching” helmets, grabbed the flashlights, and trekked on down the dark, creepy hallway.
Whenever a child found a bug, we’d carefully catch it and put it in their “bug catcher”. Oh, how excited they were!
When we returned back to our art room, I brought out a basket of insect field guides and we identified all the bugs that we could. After that, I had the children draw the bugs that they had found.
After that, we said goodbye to the bugs and walked outside to set them all free.
Listening to each of these children talk excitedly with their parents at the end of the day was life-changing for me. It helped me to realize just how much children enjoyed learning about anything and everything.
The next day, I read them some nonfiction books that talked about where different bugs lived.
We then ventured out for another “bug walk”, this time outdoors. We overturned rocks, examined dead trees, and explored the garden while looking for bugs.
Then, we sat down on the patio and looked up the insects in the field guides once again and headed inside to draw them.
The children were not bored, but just as excited.
This first unit I did really stuck with me, although in subsequent years, as my children grew, I added quite a bit of other activities to this unit.
More fun with bugs!
One year, I ordered an ant farm. This was truly miraculous for the kids to watch. Each day they drew the tunnels and they made up stories about what the ants were doing.
One year one of my sons bought a Venus Flytrap. This was an extremely interesting venture into carnivorous plants, while at the same time, learning where insects fall on the food chain.
Most years included drawing a diagram of the life cycle of an insect.
Hatching from an egg; Larva stage; Pupa stage; Adult.
Making a dance for the kids, where they used scarves to act out the stages is one of my all-time favorite activities that we did with our bug units.
Sketching
Also, I generally included sketching insects, including:
The 3 pairs of legs; a body segmented into 3 parts(head, thorax, abdomen); compound eyes; 1 pair of antennae; and usually wings.
I encouraged the children to express their creativity during this unit by:
Building their own insects, which can be done, with pipe cleaners, play-doh, or a variety of items found around your house.
Cutting out pictures of insects from magazines and making collages.
Writing stories or poems revolving around insects.
Painting insects.
Bug books!
Here are some of my favorite bug books:
Preschool:
Little Miss Spider Books
Any Books by Eric Carle–especially Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Click Beetle, and The Grouchy Ladybug
I Love Bugs!
Elementary:
Charlotte’s Web
Sam And The Firefly
Magic School Bus: Insect Invaders or Spins A Web
Adding more fun to our study on bugs!
My favorite board games to incorporate into my theme are:
Cootie
Ants In The Pants
My favorite songs to incorporate are:
The Ants Go Marching
The Itsy Bitsy Spider
Baby Bumblebee
Check out my earlier blog post on my favorite fingerplays:
https://learningisawayoflife.com/favorite-fingerplays/
Some fun kitchen ideas that I’ve used are:
Ants On A Log–celery with peanut butter and chocolate chips.
Ladybugs–half apples with Nutella spots
Spiders–banana bodies with pretzel legs
So, even though I detest bugs, I found this unit study to be worthy of repeating yearly. I love encouraging the children to overcome fears and try new things and for me, this was me putting my advice into action.
I challenge you to give it a try!
If you use a “bug study”, I’d love to hear some activities that you incorporate.
