Bugs!

Dramatic Play

The first two days, we played in ant tunnels.  I also had butterfly and ladybug headbands for them to play with.



The second two days, we played the butterfly life cycle. I truthfully wasn't sure if they'd get it, but thought of it as my kids were playing in sleeping bags one time and looked like caterpillars. They got it and loved it! I was so impressed! They loved wiggling around, then going in their chrysalis, and shedding their skin to become a butterfly. Some even were ladybug larva, then a pupa, then a ladybug. My teacher heart sang :)


 

Blocks

Dramatic Play extended over, but this also became our science bug center for our live bugs. Look how tiny the caterpillars started!!
 



 
There were also bug games and puzzles available for them to play, and they did them all.

Art

Bug sponge stamping. I added some plants too.
 
We did snack prep to make ladybug pizzas. Then painted.

We made egg carton bugs.
 
Looked at live ladybugs! I bought a bag of 1500 at Smith's, and was super disappointed that 75% were dead :(  But the live ones were fun to watch and release.

Small Manipulatives

Pattern puzzle magnets with bug patterns

Insect Dominos

File Folder Games (thanks to my son's awesome church teacher)

Bee Counting Game (thanks to that same teacher)

Bug Size Sorting (again, amazing primary teacher)

Ladybug ABC puzzle
 
The Hungry Caterpillar story board and puzzle
 
Writing
 We had bug stamp markers
 
and bug tracing/coloring pages 
 
Snack

Our bug-specific snacks were the lady bug pizzas.
 
And caterpillar kabobs, which they made by putting grapes and blueberries on their skewers. They were delicious, healthy, and a great fine motor activity!

 Outside

We had bugs in the sensory table with wheat.

I also had jars for bug catching. We looked underneath things in my yard and found lots of worms, centipedes, spiders, and earwigs. We also had fun chasing and trying to catch baby grasshoppers! They're fast little guys, and we did manage to catch 2.

 

Large Group
We learned the word Life Cycle, and used the bug models I had to learn about the life cycles of Butterflies, Ladybugs, and Praying Mantises. Then, they got in groups of 3 and took turns with the models and put them all in order.

We made caterpillars by gluing pom poms on clothespins. They will transform later.
 
We took a field trip to my neighbor's beehive. She forgot and wasn't home, but we still got to see the hive and bees, touch real wax from the bees, and see one of the boards they had built their honeycomb on. We also saw many bugs on our walk.

We read The Hungry Caterpillar, then painted a coffee filter with watercolors for our butterflies. Once they dried, our caterpillars transformed into butterflies!

We wrote in our journals about our favorite bugs we learned about.

Each day, we sang Head Thorax Abdomen to learned about insects. It's to the tune of Head Shoulders Knees and Toes.

Head, thorax, abdomen. Abdomen. Abdomen.
Head, thorax, abdomen. 6 legs and antennae.


Small Group
Miss Kim worked on math. They did the bug 1-10 puzzles, then sorted bugs by size.

My group did math too, using a bug measuring book I have. It has an attached measuring tape, so we read the book and took turns measuring the bugs on each page.

Week 2, Miss Kim played The Hungry Caterpillar board game with her group.

My group reviewed patterns and made caterpillar necklaces with green penne pasta and red pony beads.

Chrysalides!

This morning, we woke up to 3 hanging caterpillars, and one guy chillin on top.

One of them is hanging by one of its silk threads, instead of the lid. I'm worried he's going to fall, but I hope he hangs on! He's on the left.

Right before we went outside, we checked on them and they were all the same. We went outside to play and release our ladybugs, and one of the kids came in and saw that we already had a chrysalis! So we all got to check it out when we came back inside.

My small group sat by the caterpillars as we worked on our caterpillar necklaces, and the one on top kept going in circles and driving the other ones crazy! They'd reach up and shake a lot whenever he came by. They loved watching.

After school I checked on them, and one of the caterpillars was pretty wiggly. I set up my phone next to it on time lapse and went upstairs to feed my kids lunch. When I came back down, it was a chrysalis too! My phone had stopped recording and said the storage was full, so I wasn't sure if it'd captured anything. Luckily, the video worked and ends right after the chrysalis is formed!

First Hanging Caterpillar

We've had 2 caterpillars on the lid all day today, and my kids are constantly checking on them. Tonight, right after dinner, we noticed this one had formed his J shape to get ready to make his chrysalis! I'm sure the others will follow soon!

Growing Caterpillars

These guys grow so stinkin fast, and are now much more wiggly and fun to watch! The kids loved watching them today in school, and looking up close at all their features. They are now 8 days old, so they will soon crawl to the top and hang in a j shape, then form their chrysallis! I'm hoping by preschool Thursday, a few will have done that. One has been on top all day today, so he'll probably be the first to hang.

Caterpillar updates

The caterpillars are growing fast! The kids were super impressed Thursday to see how much they'd already grown from Tuesday. They were also much more active on Thursday, and there were constant squeals, of "come look! They're moving!" They were fun to watch.

Here they are on Thursday:



They've already grown a lot, and are spending more time crawling all over the jar, and are really liking the lid. They've spun their little silk webs everywhere, and have shed their skins several times. We talked about that in class, and you can point out to them all the little black balls, that is their old skin they shed.

Friday:
 

 

Saturday:

Our bugs!

Our class bugs arrived today. The caterpillars are always the most exciting!

I did something new this year, and also got a praying mantis egg case. There were some problems with my order, so another praying mantis egg case came free! Sadly, they hatch anywhere from 2-10 weeks :( So, fingers crossed one of them hatches in 4 so we get to see them! They have to be immediately released, or they'll eat each other, but we can keep a few. We will keep vigilant watch at home, and post here if anything happens or changes.

Butterflies!

Sorry I didn't update much over the weekend. Not much happened :) The ladybugs hatched about 1 a day, and as of Sunday afternoon, all 8 had hatched. It's interesting that none of them are red. I'm really excited to release them with the kids tomorrow, except it's supposed to rain. We're going to release them either way, because their "watering hole" is growing mold (gross) and they can only live a week in captivity anyway, and the first is almost a week old. They survive rain in the wild, they'll just have to deal :)



This morning, we checked on the chrysalides again and nothing! It was day 11 for the first one (they hatch between 7-10 days). So I emailed Insect Lore to ask about a refill since their guarantee promises 3 to hatch. Then, a few hours later, McKynlee went to check on them before we ran some errands and we had 2 butterflies! I snapped these pics on my phone real quick.

The red stuff is something that leaks out of them after they hatch. It's gross, but normal.

We had a crazy day of running around, so we didn't really get to check on them again until this evening. We fed them (sugar water dripped on flowers) and they went crazy! They were flying all over and the kids were just squealing. I tried to get pictures, but they're so fast, and it's hard to see them with the butterfly pictures all over the bottom. So the pics aren't great. But, tomorrow the kids get to see butterflies! I'll let them feed them oranges tomorrow and I hope we get some more flying! I'm hoping the other 2 will still hatch.