I - Insects

Ii - Insects

Letter: Ii

Number: 9 - Nine

Shapes - Review

Color: Purple

Kids love bugs and here is packet that will help you teach them all about insects. This packet contains suggested hands on activities that help them learn about the different body parts of insects, grow a mealworm garden, do insect observations, raise fruit flies, go on a bug hunt and more. It includes directions on how to capture a real spider web on paper, make a spider web t-shirt and creepy crawly sun glasses and hats. It has patterns and directions on how to make egg carton caterpillars, and bug catchers.

You might want to get an insect guide and a spider guide from the bookstore or library preferably ones with pictures. This unit does not have many worksheets that relate to insects. Insects are best observed in their natural environment and in person. You just don’t get the same experience on paper.

Letter and Number Activities:

Use the Letter I outline and do one of the following activities:
Color it purple
Draw nine letter Is inside the outline
Scribble in the outline with a marker, rub over the marker with an Ice cube.

Use the number 9 outline and do one of the following:
Color it 9 different colors or just purple.
Draw 9 insects in the outline.
Put 9 insect stickers inside the outline.

Shape Review:
Use the shape worksheets and do the review activities as instructed.

Color Activities: Color the shapes on one of the worksheets purple. Cut out the shapes and make a shape mobile.
Look around you, do you see anything purple?
Make purple playdough by mixing red and blue together.
Make purple paint by mixing red and blue together.

Physical Activities:
Stand in a line, take nine steps forward, take nine steps backwards.
Do nine jumping jacks.
Pretend you are a spider, show how you would walk.
Pretend you are a grasshopper, show how you would move.
Pretend you are another insect, have someone guess what it is by the way you move about.

Go on a bug walk, look around your home and neighborhood for insects. Be sure to look in unexpected places like around a door, in sidewalk cracks, on lamps, on plants, etc. What kind of insects did you find? Identify them using an insect book with pictures. Some of the most common insects you might find are ants, spiders, fleas, flies, ladybugs and moths.

Be An Ant
Make a tent out of a small table or box and blanket. This will be an ant hill where you live as an ant. Pretend you are an ant, ants work together as one big happy family. One ant goes out and scurries around for food, can you find any food? (grown up can hide food to be found).

When an ant finds food, he goes back and tells the other ants. They all go together and carry back the food.

Hands On Activities:

Spider T-shirts:
Lay a white t-shirts out flat, begin in the middle by lifting a small portion of the shirt in your hand, tightly place a rubber band around it. Do the same several more times (making the shirt into a rope). Continue adding rubber bands until you run out of shirt. The more rubber bands used the more webby the shirt will look. Wearing rubber gloves, place the entire shirt in black die until completed submerged. Remove shirt, gently squeeze out excess dye and allow to dry for 24 hours. Once you have verified that the shirt is dry, remove the rubber bands. When you lay the shirt flat you will have a spider web design. Using a permanent red marker draw on a spider. Allow it to dry.

Spiders Web
Look around outside for a great spiders web, spray paint it on both sides with enamel spray paint, not to much or it will tear apart. While it is still wet, place a piece of black construction paper behind it, the web will stick. Cut the outer edges of the spider web to seperate it.

Creepy Crawly Sunglasses
Provide child with a pair of plastic sunglasses. Glue small creepy crawly bugs around the rim.

Creepy Crawly Cap
Provide child with a painters cap, let them draw a spider web on the top. Glue a spider on the web. Or you can eliminate the web and just glue on assorted bugs.

Bug Hunt
Take a walk around the yard or a park. Look for anything you can pick up such as part of an old tree trunk, a patio block, fire wood, pile of old leaves, rocks. What did you find underneath. Using an insect book identify the bugs. Carefully choose a few bugs and place them in a jar to observe, when you are done let them go.

Fruit Flies
Place a piece of left over fruit in a glass jar and insert a plastic funnel in the top and set outside for a few hours. When you check the jar you will see fruit flies inside. Take out the funnel and place a piece of paper inside the jar. Use a large ball of cotton to plug the jar opening. Hopefully you will see some fruit flies with black tips on their bodies and some without, this indicates that you have both females and males. Within a few days your fruit flies will begin to multiply. The females will lay eggs called larvae, they will hatch into worm like baby flies. When they are about to mature, they will crawl on to the paper. When the jar gets to full, let them go.

Egg Carton Caterpillars
Using cardboard egg cartons, cut them apart in sets of three. This makes a good size caterpillar. With the humps up, paint or use markers to color the caterpillar green. Draw on eyes and glue the caterpillar to a large paper leaf. Look at pictures of caterpillars to get other ideas on how to decorate them.

Insect Observation
Find some insects, use a magnifying glass to get a better look. Draw a picture of what you found.

Mealworm Observation
Purchase "mealworms" from a local pet store. Have the child put two or three in styrofoam cups with about 2" of Oatmeal and a small slice of apple for moisture. Each day, empty them on a paper towel and observe the changes. Mealworms are the larvae of the darkling beetle and are not really worms. They are easy to cultivate for a fascinating primary level insect behavior and life cycle study. It takes up to six months for an adult to develop so the children will see the insect larvae grow, shed their exoskeletons several times, and pupate.

Bug Catchers
Have the children do some problem-solving by designing a bug-catcher with recycled household materials such as tin cans, small containers and boxes, and screen or mesh. Collect some bugs to observe.

Oatmeal Box Bug Trap
Cut a large window in an Oatmeal container. Glue a screen to cover the window on the inside. Punch two holes in the lid for a handle.

Plastic Funnel Insect Trap
Make a funnel from a plastic pop bottle by cutting the bottom off and throw the bottom away. Turn the bottle upside down. Place a piece of coarse screen inside the bottle and fill it the rest of the way with loose soil and leaf litter. Place the bottle over a dish of rubbing alcohol. As the soil dries, the insects will begin to fall through the screen into your dish. You will find families of insects that might be hard to find.

Coffee Can Insect Hotels
Use three metal coffee cans without the lids. Dig three holes in the ground so the coffee cans each fit in their own hole and the top rim is even with the ground. Fill one part way with water, place a piece of fruit in another and place dirt in the third. Check them each day to see who has visited. Which hotel attracted the most guests?

Ant Farm
Purchase an ant farm from a local nature or specialty store.

Ladybug Craft
Cut ladybug’s feet out of lightweight cardboard. Turn a paper cereal bowl upside down and glue the legs to the rim. Use paint to decorate the outside of the bowl to look like a ladybug!

Ladybug Lesson
Ladybug’s are small, oval-shaped insects with wings. They are usually red with black spots or black with red spots on their wings. The number of spots tell what kind of ladybug it is. The spots on a ladybug go away as they get older.

There are about 5,000 different kinds of ladybugs in the world. Ladybugs like to eat garden pests so they make a great garden guest.

Cardboard Ladybug
You will need thick, corrugated, cardboard cut in oval shapes. Use pipe cleaners for the legs, they slide easily into the corrugation holes in the cardboard. Add round stickers for sports or paint. Color in eyes or add wiggly eyes.

Antenna Headband
Make a band from heavy paper that fits tight around the head, staple or tape the ends together. Staple two pipe cleaner antennas to the front, glue a small pom pom on the end of each pipe cleaner. The antennae really look cute if you wrap them around a pencil and make them look a spiral.

Bees and Honeycomb Activity
Use a sponge with large holes, dip it in yellow poster paint and dab it on a piece of white paper so it resembles a honeycomb. When it is dry, use black ink to make fingerprints on the honeycomb, these will be the bees. Make wings and antennas with a marker.

Make A Ladybug
Make a ladybug with a rock. Have the children to bring in a rock about the size of their fist. A round shape is the best. Have them paint the rock in red and let dry. With a large black felt marker, draw a line in the center, some dots and glue on some eyes. Ant and insect Picnic Use 1 styrofoam plate and divide it in 4 section using an ink pen. In section 1 place fruit scraps, in section 2 place cracker or bread crumbs, in section 3 place leaves, in section 4 place peanut butter or meat.

Find an ant hill and place the plate near the anthill. Keep a record of how much and of what the ants ate the most of. Be sure to keep it away from birds.

Songs, Poems

Songs:

Ladybug (Tune: Three Blind Mice)
Fly, fly, fly.
Ladybugs fly..
Fly over here.
Fly over there.
They fly up high and they fly down low.
Around and around and around they go.
They fly fast, and they fly-fly slow.
Oh, ladybugs fly.

Ladybug, Ladybug
Ladybug, ladybug,
How are you today?
Lady bug, lady bug
Are you going to stay?
Ladybug, ladybug
Or will you fly away.

Five Little Ladybugs...
Five little ladybugs climbing up a door
One flew away then there were four
Four little ladybugs sitting on a tree
One flew away then there were three
Three Little ladybugs landed on a shoe
One flew away then there were two
Two little ladybugs looking for some fun
One flew away and then there was one
One little ladybug sitting in the sun
She flew away and then there were none

Grasshoppers
From small in size
To as big as whoppers
We hop in the grass
So we're called grasshoppers!

A Bug
I saw a bug with twenty feet
Go crawling up and down the street
And wondered if he stubbed his toe
If he would ever really know

Snack:
Ants On A Log Cut celery into 4" pieces, fill crevices with peanut butter, place raisins on top of peanut butter.

Live Insects:
For a great selection of live insects to use with this unit call Insect Lore at 1-800-LIVE BUG.

Where To Look For Insects:
Under rocks and wood.....Insects hide under objects for moisture or protection.
Composts...................Decaying matter attract Insects.
In the dirt.........................During winter, insects in the soil.
Nests or burrows.....Nests and burrows are a great place to look..
Rotten logs........................Peel away the bark away and look beneath.
Streams and ponds.............Insects are here year-round.
On trees and shrubs.............Spread a sheet under the branches and shake the insects off with your hand.
Damaged trees...................Butterflies are attracted to the sap that flows from wounded trees.
In flowers.........................Pull flowers apart to see inside the petals. On lights..........................Insects are attracted to lights. They stay away from yellow and red. Swimming pool filters........You will find lots here, insects fall in the pool and are filtered out.

Make a book of what insects you found in each area.