Insects: Part 3

With this unit, we have been learning about the concept of working hard. The kids watched "The Little Red Hen" video on the computer, and we talked about how she was a hard worker while all her friends were pretty lazy. To go along with this we read and discussed 1 Thessalonians 3:10b, which says, "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."

(the link for the video is http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/little-red-hen/0b87715497d95dcae61c0b87715497d95dcae61c-285891559791?q=the%20story%20of%20the%20little%20red%20hen)

I know the idea sunk in because this morning, Madison decided to make every one's bed and sweep the kitchen floor, all without being prompted to. I said to her, "Wow! You sure are a busy worker bee today!" And her response to me was, "Yes, so I get to eat!" I had to chuckle at that!

We read "The Life Cycle of a Honeybee" by Bobbie Kalman and looked at a chart of the life cycle.

During snack time, I read "Honey in a Hive" by Anne Rockwell to the kids, which tells how bees make honey. While I read, the kids munched on crackers with honey.

We read "Inchworm and a Half" by Elinor J. Pinczes and made our lowercase "i" into an inchworm.
(I modified the inchworm craft a little, but the initial idea came from http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2010/08/now-i-know-my-abcs-i-is-for-inchworm.html)

"Inchworm and a Half" tells a story using some very basic fractions. Madison, being a visual learner, needed some help in trying to understand the concept of 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4, so I cut up a pipe cleaner to demonstrate the fractions. I showed her our own fraction "worms" as we read the book.

Madison did a bumblebee tracing worksheet (from www.makinglearningfun.com) and an insect pattern worksheet (from www.tlsbooks.com).

For a fun art project, Madison did a fingerprint insect picture. She made bees, a butterfly, a couple dragonflies, several ladybugs, ants, grasshoppers, and even some stinkbugs. All were made with her own fingerprints!
(idea from http://mama-jenn.blogspot.com/2009/05/preschool-corner-finger-painted-insects.html)

Insects: Part 2

We're still working on our Insect unit, and have finished up learning about ladybugs (who, unlike their name suggests, actually aren't a bug by the real definition! Insect, yes. Bug, no.)

We read the book "Ladybugs" by Margaret Hall and talked a little bit about the life cycle of a ladybug. The kids cut out little cards that had each life cycle stage on them and practiced putting them in the correct order.
(the life cycle sheets were from www.enchantedlearning.com)

We read "The Grouchy Ladybug" by Eric Carle and made a ladybug clock from paper plates. This was the front of the clock.
(the idea from the clock came from http://www.homeschoolshare.com/grouchy_ladybug.php)

And here is the back view

When we read through "The Grouchy Ladybug", we moved our ladybug clock to the same times shown on each page.

We made an accordion-style insect book titled "How Many Insects?"
(www.kizclub.com)

Along with the insect book, Madison worked on a Ladybug Addition worksheet.
(math worksheet from www.makinglearningfun.com)

We painted rocks to look like...

ladybugs

We made an insect trap and kept outside overnight. We buried this jar so that it was even with the ground, put pieces of apple and some crackers with honey on them in it, then loosely covered it with a piece of cardboard. This morning when we checked it, we found 4 spiders in it. Madison's response was, "But they aren't insects!" Oh well. We tried.

We'll be concluding our Insect unit with a study on bees. Stay tuned!

I: Interesting Insects

We are beginning a unit on insects and today talked a little bit about ants. We talked about how ants are not lazy, but instead, are very hard workers. We read the Bible verses Proverbs 6:6-9, talked about how we also need to be hard workers, and we learned our words to remember: "I am a wise child, so I work hard".

A great informational book about ants is "Ant Cities" by Arthur Dorros. It talked about various kinds of ants and the jobs they do in order to keep their ant cities alive.

We also read a cute fictional book called "Ant and Honey Bee What a Pair!" by Megan McDonald, a short books titled "Can an Ant Carry Me?" by Meg Greve, and another great informational book called "Bugs Are Insects" by Anne Rockwell.

One interesting fact that we read about in the "Bugs Are Insects" book was that all bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs. Did you know that?! I sure didn't. I thought the word "bug" and "insect" could be used interchangeably, but that's just not so. So it isn't just the kids who are learning new things in these lessons we're doing!


We discussed briefly the life cycle of an ant, and we also talked about how to determine if something is an insect by counting its legs (6 of them) and the parts of its body (3 of those).


After having our Ants on a Log snack, in the shape of an "I", for Insects of course...

...we headed outside to go on an insect hunt. I gave each child a container and we caught various bugs in them and observed them for a few minutes before letting them go again. We found all kinds of insects..


ants...

bumblebees...

Monarch butterflies...

other kinds of moths and butterflies...


and even some other name-unknown insects...

I had the chance to explain to the kids the concept of camouflage because of this insect that looked just like the tree trunk.

We even saw a couple of these big arachnids hanging out in their webs, and discussed how they are not insects because they actually have 2 parts to their body, and 8 legs.
(I'll admit it, I find these creature to be pretty gross, but my kids sure enjoyed observing them, so that's what matters most!)

More on insects next week!