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.