BUGS!!!

We had preschool at our house this week. The theme was Bugs and Insects. As a kid I LOVED LOVED LOVED bugs! :) I spent most of my summers looking for bugs under bricks, stones, wood, anywhere! Anyhow, I was quite excited to teach this subject to the kids. We have made it through the alphabet (a letter a week) so now we are also teaching numbers. I had numbers 5 and 6, which worked great, we had ladybugs with 5 spots, egg carton caterpillars with 5 humps, and then of course insects has 6 legs. :)


Anyhow, I'll just share some of the activities that I think worked well. Bear in mind, the kids are all four years old.


As I mentioned before we made egg carton caterpillars. The kids donned paint shirts and went to town. I pulled one child aside at a time and gave them a coffee filter, water color paints, and an old medicine dropper. I did not tell them what this was for, but they just enjoyed without asking questions. :) I told them they could not take their caterpillars home because they needed to dry. When they came back two days later they caterpillars had climbed in paper bag cocoons. I had attached the coffee filter wings as well. They were very excited. The filters are not wing shapes, but they flap up and down very well when you make your caterpillar fly!!




I also made these worksheets myself. The graphic of the ladybug I got from another website, but the rest I made myself. :) If you would like a file of it, let me know and I could probably email it to you.





I taught them a bit about spiders. To teach them how spiders do not stick to their own webs, try this: Insects get stuck in a spider's web because the spider's web is sticky, but a spider does not because it's legs are oily. We experiment with this idea by taping two squares of contact paper to the table, sticky side up. We pretend our hand is a bug, with our legs (fingers) sticking to the web. Using the other square of contact paper, we pretend to be a spider, dipping our legs (fingers) into cooking oil first, then walking across the sticky "web". (from http://www.prekinders.com/bugsunit.htm). The kids loved this.

For story time we read:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Great children's story. I have not met anyone that did not like this book!


View all my reviews.

and then made a hungry caterpillar from a pipe cleaner. I found various free graphics on the net and printed them all on one page. The kids colored and cut out, and I punched a whole in the middle.


We made a very cute ladybug snack, that I neglected to get a picture of. Slice an apple in half lengthwise, and lay with cut side down on a plate. The ladybugs' spots are raisins, put on with a dot of peanut butter. The head is a grape attached with a toothpick. (from here: http://www.preschooleducation.com/cbug.shtml). I used what I had on hand, so our ladybugs were green, with 5 chocolate chip spots, and no grape head. The kids liked it anyhow, though they did ask why it was green. :)

I found a "New Itsy Bitsy Spider here: http://www.hummingbirded.com/spiders.html
The kids LOVED this!
"A New Itsy-Bitsy Spider"
The itsty-bitsy spider
Crawled up on (Name)'s head.
He crawled all around, then used it for a bed.
He crawled down (his/her) back
and jumped down to the floor.
Then the itsy-bitsy spider
Crawled underneath the door.

I also learned about the Tarantella, I have heard this song many times over the years, but did not know its name. Apparently one would dance to this song to keep the mania from taking over if you were bitten by a tarantula (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantella). My son wanted to hear this song over and over and over again!

Thursday our snack was these cute butterflies


We served snacks both days with nectar juice (any kind of juice, served with a straw through a paper flower)


This may look like a bunch of scribbles, but its not

I gave the kids brown paper (color of the month) and told them to use a yellow crayon, since bumblebees are yellow, and I played, "Flight of the Bumblebee" and told them to draw to the music. I did this same activity a few years ago, and the kids always seem to like it. Unstructured art is great for small kids, no frustration when it doesn't turn out like the model.

We also played this little game: Sleeping Caterpillars: Bring in sleeping bag to use as a chrysalis and place it on floor. Let one child at a time pretend to be a caterpillar and crawl inside sleeping bag. Then have everyone sing the first verse of the song below. When child crawls out of the sleeping bag, have everyone sing the second verse (also from Hummingbirded)
Sung to "Goodnight Ladies"
Goodnight caterpillar,
Goodnight caterpillar,
Goodnight caterpillar,
You'll be a butterfly.
Merrily you fly away,
Fly away, fly away.
Merrily you fly away,
Pretty butterfly.
We did this a few times each. :)

Some other great books we read were:
Little Miss Spider by David Kirk

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Cute story!


View all my reviews.

The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars



View all my reviews.

Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
cute story, filled with lots of C words!


View all my reviews.

Ladybugs: Red, Fiery, and Bright by Mia Posada

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
This is a great factual book about ladybugs, but set in a cute rhyme to keep it interesting for the littles.


View all my reviews.

Slugs in Love by Susan Pearson

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Cute little rhyme-y story.


View all my reviews.

(I just love my local library!)

We also played with lots of felt from Story Time Felts (I just love their stuff, which is why I sell it)

We had this out to play with before we started


We played with this felt as we read the book by Iza Trapani


and we sang this more than a few times both days, I love this set!


I had hoped to do some bug hunting with the kids, but alas, the rain and snow put a stop to that. Overall, the kids had lots of fun, and I think they learned too!