Grade: Elementary
Subject: Science

#983. Insects - bugs

Science, level: Elementary
Posted Mon Apr 12 18:28:36 PDT 1999 by Djinn- ECE chatboard and mailring (ideas from the chatboards and mailring).
Materials Required: Varied
Activity Time: Varied
Concepts Taught: Varied

These are all of the ideas posted on the ECE mailring and chatboard since March.

I forgot who was doing creepy crawlies with me, but I wanted to share a great story I just got.
Bugs! by David T. Greenberg. I got mine at a Scholastics book fair, but it is on amazon too.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316325740/qid=923884078/sr=1-15/002-3523453-0733611
Great illustrations and humor. Even used the kindergarten dirty word --- UNDERWEAR!!
Not only uses the word but has a picture of a little boy in his!! Heaven forbid!!
"Bugs with pincers, claws, and hair,
Bugs much fiercer than a bear,
Buggies in your underwear ---
Tearing at you, BUGS!"
I am going to use it tomorrow to start the week off.
I want to thank all of you for the suggestions. I also found some insect software to download. I will post the information if any of them are any good.
Have a great day tomorrow.
Nancy

hi everyone,
i have a ladybug unit on my website:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/2221/ladybug.html
addie

Hi Becky, There are some sites I have collected. Hope they help. Lorraine http://www.iup.edu/~njyost/KHI/bfly.html http://db.cochran.com/li_showElems:theoPage:theo:3871:0.db http://www.heatersworld.com/bugworld/ Date: Thursday, March 11, 1999 5:39 PM
Subject: Re: Ladybug stuff


OK, Ladybug people! :o)
Here are just a few of the MANY ladybug links I found this afternoon:

www.geocities.com/CollegePark/8484/ladybugs.htm
www.letsgetgrowing.com/detail/habitats/ladybugs.html
www.bookstore.com/_private/ladybug.html--This one says ladybugs only in
stock June-Sept...
www.members.aol.com/BuyLadybug <----??? (forgot 2 checkout this site)
agri.gov.ns.ca/pt/hort/garden97/gg97-32.htm
www.butterflyinmiami.com/gifts/lore1.htm-- This one says ladybugs not available March-May...
www.thegrowstore.com/pestod.htm
www.notus.com/hourneys/index.htm
www.lhs.berkeley.edu/GEMS/GEM090.htm
www.cybertown.net/fun/products/d8370.html
www2.viaweb.com/mentormerc/butladandmor.html
www.mentormerc.com/mentormerc/livladlod.html
www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/iiin
www.aimsedu.org/activities/lenses/lenses1.html
www.stud.uni-hannover.de/~ismer/living-- Not too sure what this one is;
takes long time to load...
www.insectlore.com
www.vbe.com/~gns/ladybug.html
www.nwf.org/natlwild/nwindx-1.html
http://www.libsci.sc.edu/miller/insect.htm http://www.mesc.nbs.gov/butterfly/Butterfly.html http://www.angelfire.com/ma/1stGrade/pageu.html http://www.teachers.net/lessons/posts/87.html http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/images.html First grade- insects http://www.sbcss.k12.ca.us/sbcss/specialeducation/ecthematic/insects http://www.iup.edu/~njyost/KHI/insct.html http://www.mesc.nbs.gov/butterfly/Butterfly.html http://www.angelfire.com/ma/1stGrade/pageu.html http://members.aol.com/il2teach/insects.htm http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Entomology/images.html http://members.aol.com/il2teach/insects.htm http://www.iup.edu/~njyost/KHI/insct.html http://www.sbcss.k12.ca.us/sbcss/specialeducation/ecthematic/insects/ http://www.eecs.umich.edu/mathscience/funexperiments/quickndirty/insectnets.htm

Ladybug Poem
Little red ladybug sits on a leaf.
She sits on a leaf on a tree.
And as she sits on that little green leaf.
There are so many friends to see!
Little yellow bumblebees buzz by the leaf.
they buzz by the leaf on the tree.
And as they buzz by that little green leaf.
There are so many friends to see! Continue substituting the different insect and have children
act out. Idea is from The Mailbox Mag. April/May l995.You can do a take off on Brown Bear, Brown
Bear, What Do YOU See? by Bill Martin Ladybug, Ladybug, what do you see? I see a butterfly
looking at me.. I have them make butterfly they can wear on their wrist. Just have children
color and cut our large butterfly and glue to a paper toilet paper roll that is slit to fit on
their wrist. They can make the butterfly fly by moving their arm. Lori

Here's a couple of ideas my kinders especially love during our bug unit:

1. Bugwatcher glasses- this was something my student teacher did last year
and it was a huge hit! She bought a few pairs of inexpensive plastic
children's sunglasses, took the lenses out and hot-glued plastic insects all
around the frames- voila- Bugwatcher glasses! These were at our "Creepy
Crawler Corner" for the children to put on when they were @ that center-
observing the Butterfly house or doing any of the other activities-
absolutely adorable and made for the cutest pictures! Very simple to make
too!

2. "What Bugs Us!"- Each child created a fingerprint bug on a 4x6 index card
using colored stamp pads(except if they chose a bee, we used yellow paint).
They added features (legs,spots,antennae,etc) with a fine line Sharpie. Most
popular choices were ladybugs, ants, spiders, bees and caterpillars(cutest!).
Then they either wrote or dictated what "bugs" them. These were displayed
in a pocket chart on a bulletin board with the caption What Bugs Us(Bugs was
in red with black sticker dots, other letters black) Once the kids
understood the pun they had so much fun with this- their responses were great
and the parents got such a kick reading these on Open House night.

3. A great find- I was at Pic n Save (may just be a Calif. store) and found
packages of good quality plastic insects-12 for 99 cents. These are so fun
for sorting, counting etc. and the kids love them! They also had plastic bug
houses for 99 cents.

Anyway, just a few more ideas..... :-) Jenni/k/Ca
This is a good one too - to the tune of Head, Shouldeers Knees and toes

Head, thorax abdomen, six legs
Head, thorax abdomen, six legs
And eyes and ears and antennae
Head, thorax abdomen, six legs

I point to the approx. parts on our body for each of the insect parts...put
up index fingers and waggle them for antenna, and we put three fingers out on
each side for 6 legs!!

:) Shaynee


"Yesterday is history....Tomorrow is a mystery....Today is a gift. That is
why we call it the present."

You could use this for a center or a math game:
Cut out red lady bugs and put different numbers of dots on their backs.
Then cut out large leaves with numbers on them. Children can math the dots
to the numbers. This could be a group game if you passed out a leaf or a
ladybug to each child and they had to go find the match. You could have the
leaves sit down and and say "Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home!" at which
time the lady bugs would "fly" around the room and find their leaf homes.
Next time, switch and let the children with leaves be the ladybugs.
You could also do a sequencing activity with picture cards of the ladybugs
life cycle. They go through stages similar to the butterfly.
Hope this helps!
Harriette

Here is an idea for lady bugs. Make enough red potato prints on one piece
of paper for the number you are working on like 7 or 8. then let them dry.
Put black dots on them to turn into lady bugs. Then make the pages into
books and have the kids read them. 7 lady bugs, 7 lady bugs, etc.
We make butterflies by coloring designs with magic
markers onto coffee filters (watercolors work well too)
Then we scrunch the filter into a clothespin and use
pipe cleaners for the antenae. (maybe skip the
pipecleaners)

(from Mary) We also pretend we are caterpillars and
crawl into our caccoons (a blanket draped between
chairs). Then when we come out we are beautiful
butterflies!!! (we did something similar and played
some "butterfly music" - we used Vivaldi's Spring -
while we danced like butterflies)

(from Sandy)I made big cut outs of all the fruits and
got a green sock and made it into a puppet. The puppet
then goes through all the fruits as it eats them
and they rest on your arm.

Our kids loved this activity from Sarah - for toddlers,
you could provide stickers or pictures cut out of
magazines for them to glue onto the "caterpillar".

Our class made a caterpillar out of paper plates, one
plate for each day of food, we punched the appropriate
number of holes to look like the caterpillar crawled
through, and the kids drew, cut out or painted the
food on each plate. We put them together with brads,
attached on the sides of the paper plate. The first
plate had the caterpillars face and the title and
author of the book. These can be decorated really cute
by the kids, they have such imagination. Legs can be
added, hair to the face etc. It folds together to look
like a book and when it is unfolded it looks like a
caterpillar.

Good luck!

Jennifer

A while back someone was asking for songs and poems about butterflies.
I thought, now that I have a chance, I would pass along a few of my
favorite. I sent them last year, and a couple I may have gotten off the
ring. Here they come. I hope some one can use them.

Six Buzzing Bumblebees

Six buzzing bumblebees
Flying around the hive,
One buzzes off
And that leaves five.

Five buzzing bumblebees
Flying near my door,
One buzzes off
And that leaves four.

Four buzzing bumblebees
Flying around a tree,
One buzzes off
And that leaves three.

Three buzzing bumblebees
In the sky so blue,
One buzzes off
And that leaves two.

Two buzzing bumblebees
Flying by the sun,
One buzzes off
And that leaves one.

One buzzing bumblebee
Looking for some fun,
It buzzes off
And that leaves none.

--Susan M. Paprocki

Ladybug and Friends
from Mailbox Mag.

Little red ladybug sits on a leaf.
She sits on a leaf on a tree,
And as she sits on that little green leaf,
There are so many friends to see!

Little yellow bumblebees buzz by the leaf.
They buzz by the leaf on the tree.
And as they buzz by that little green leaf,
There are so many friends to see!

Little brown crickets go chirping by the leaf.
They chirp by the leaf on the tree,
And as they chirp by that little green leaf,
There are so many friends to see!

Little tiny ants go scurrying by the leaf.
They scurry by the leaf on the tree.
And as they scurry by that little green leaf,
There are so many friends to see!

Little green grasshoppers go hopping by the leaf.
They hop by the leaf on the tree.
And as they hop by that little green leaf,
There are so many friends to see!

Little shy butterflies go fluttering by the leaf.
They flutter by the leaf on the tree.
And as they flutter by that little green leaf,
There are so many friends to see!

All the little insects sitting by the leaf.
They sit by the leaf on the tree.
And as they sit by that little green leaf,
They're a happy insect family!

Insect Parts

(Tune: It Ain't Gonna Rain No More)

An insect has three body parts,
No more, no less than three:
Head and thorax, abdomen -
It sure makes sense to me!

The head has mouthparts well designed
And compound eyes as well.
Antennae sense the world around:
They feel and hear and smell.

The thorax is where legs are joined
Three pairs, six legs in all;
Two pairs of wings, or one, or none,
To fly or jump or crawl.

The abdomen is where are found
The systems that it needs
To breathe, to reproduce, digest
The food on which it feeds.

An insect has three body parts,
No more, no less than three:
Head and thorax, abdomen -
It sure makes sense to me!

© Suzy Gazlay

Spring Is Here
(To the tune of "Jingle Bells")

Spring is here, spring is here,
That's what people say.
The snow is gone away somewhere;
It melted all away.
Yay!

Spring is here, spring is here,
That's what people say.
The birds are flying north again
To wake us every day.
Yay!

Spring is here, spring is here,
That's what people say.
Our bikes are on the go again;
We put our sleds away.
Yay!

Spring is here, spring is here,
That's what people say.
The bunnies are turning brown again;
We like to watch them play.
Yay!

Spring Sensations
I smell the flowers (Touch nose.)
I feel the showers (Cover head.)
I hear the bees (Cup ears.)
I see new leaves (Point to eyes.)
And I dream (Close eyes.)
Of ice cream (Lick lips.)
Yum!

We do several things while studying insects, a few are:

How do insects eat?
Use nutcrackers to simulate an ant grinding.
Use a straw to poke through a plastic wrap covered cup full of
punch to simulate a mosquito sucking blood.

My Insect Trap
Create an insect trap to study and observe insects without harming
the insect.

Listen to the story Insect Alphabet.
Learn about the alphabet using your name: M is for Mosquito, etc.

That's all I can remember right now; I'll look through my insect committee
folders at school for some others.


Michael Lovato

Re: need insect activities
Posted by Lisa on 4/03/99
I have a wonderful set of insect stamps that I make many activities from. We make multiple copies of the stamps and use them for making patterns, adding, subtracting, etc. One activity the kids enjoy is our spider web project. The kids make a spider web on dark paper (we usually let the kids design the web with a pencil, trace with glue, and then add glitter. They make a spider out of paper and add eight legs and wiggly eyes. We attach the spider to the web with yarn. The next day, we do our bug math. We have 8 different type of bugs precut onto 1 inch squares (the bugs are made with stamps) and placed in a sorting tray. If you don't have bug stamps, any small insect pictures will do. The children take turns rolling a dice. If they roll a 3, they pick which bug they want and glue 3 of the same bug on their web. Each time they roll the dice, they must choose a different type bug to glue on. ex. If they glue 3 fireflies on for #3, they cannot choose fireflies again. The dice we use is homemade (a small wooden cube with numbers from 0 to 5 written on each side). When they're done they complete a teacher made worksheet. My higher kids graph the numbers of bugs their spider caught. My lowest kids (I teach a fuuly included K class with 4 PSSE students) have pictures of each bug where they count how many their spider caught and either write or trace the number.
Re: need insect activities
Posted by Lorraine, on 4/03/99

Here are a ton of sites for you.
Lorraine

Here are some sites you might like:
Insects:

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/misc/insectsasfood.html

http://www.minnetonka.k12.mn.us/schools/groveland/insect.proj/
describe.html

http://www.eecs.umich.edu/mathscience/funexperiments/agesubjec
t/lessons/insect.html

http://kidscience.miningco.com/msub21.htm?pid=2781&cob=home

Butterfly sites

from Lorraine

http://www.mesc.nbs.gov/butterfly.html

http://mgfx.com/butterfly/

http://butterflywebsite.com/Educate/biblio.htm

http://wwfcanada.org/wwfkids/monarch/index.html

http://www.monarchwatch.org/

http://www.heatersworld.com/bugworld/

stuff


OK, Ladybug people! :o)
Here are just a few of the MANY ladybug links I found this
afternoon:

www.geocities.com/CollegePark/8484/ladybugs.htm
www.letsgetgrowing.com/detail/habitats/ladybugs.html
www.bookstore.com/_private/ladybug.html--This one says
ladybugs only in
stock June-Sept...
www.members.aol.com/BuyLadybug <----??? (forgot 2 checkout
this site)
agri.gov.ns.ca/pt/hort/garden97/gg97-32.htm
www.butterflyinmiami.com/gifts/lore1.htm-- This one says
ladybugs not
available March-May...
www.thegrowstore.com/pestod.htm
www.notus.com/hourneys/index.htm
www.lhs.berkeley.edu/GEMS/GEM090.htm
www.cybertown.net/fun/products/d8370.html
www2.viaweb.com/mentormerc/butladandmor.html
www.mentormerc.com/mentormerc/livladlod.html
www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/iiin
www.aimsedu.org/activities/lenses/lenses1.html
www.stud.uni-hannover.de/~ismer/living-- Not too sure what
this one is;
takes long time to load...
www.insectlore.com
www.vbe.com/~gns/ladybug.html
www.nwf.org/natlwild/nwindx-1.html

http://www.libsci.sc.edu/miller/insect.htm

http://www.libsci.sc.edu/miller/insect.htm
>

Re: need insect activities/bug song
Posted by Lisa on 4/05/99


The Insect Song
(tune: 3 Blind Mice)

Buzz, buzz, buzz.
Bumblebees buzz.
Buzz over here.
Buzz over there.
They buzz up high and they buzz down low.
Around and around and around they go.
They buzz-buzz fast, and they buzz-buzz slow.
Oh, bumblebees buzz!

Repeat the song, replacing the insect name and its corresponding action word with each of these word pairs in turn: grasshoppers/hop, butterflies/flutter, little ants/run, ladybugs/fly, crickets/jump.


Re: need insect activities
Posted by Jacque, , on 4/09/99

I put potting soil (without bark, but sterilized) in my
sensory table and found some wonderful plastic insects that my
kids are having a great time digging up and matching ones that
are the same. Tiana Kay has a great song, "Little Skeetle
Beetle" --chorus is, "Buggy Wuggy, buggy wuggy, buggy wuggy,
he's a buggy, wuggy beetle boy from
Hug-bug beach."

Re: Does anyone know any insect poems?
Posted by Addie k/mo, , on 4/02/99

(To the tune: Head Shoulders Knees and Toes)

Head, thorax, abdomen
Head, thorax, abdomen
Six legs and two anntenae
Head, thorax, abdomen

Re: Does anyone know any insect poems?
Posted by Kathie, , on 4/07/99

K Kim, here is a poem by Margaret Wise Brown that I plan to
u use with my kindergarten class in May. I'll probably chart
i it out and use for "reading around the room" during centers.

BUGS

I like bugs.
Black bugs,
Green bugs,
Bad bugs,
Mean bugs,
Any kind of bug,

A bug in a rug,
A bug in the grass,
A bug on the sidewalk,
A bug in a glass -
I like bugs.

Round bugs,
shiny bugs,
Fat bugs,
buggy bugs,
Big bugs,
ladybugs,
I like bugs.
Re: Does anyone know any insect poems?
Posted by Natalie, on 4/08/99
Hi Kim,
I use a poem a day with my class. In the book, Daily Poetry by
carol simpson, there is a cute poem called Beans, Beans, Beans
by Lucia and james L. Hymes, Jr. One first grade class used
this as a pattern poem and wrote their own poem. Here are both
poems

Bugs, Bugs, Bugs
by Mrs. Simpson's First Graders

Lady bugs, beetle bugs,
Ticklish climbing spider bugs,
Buzzing, flying, bumblebee bugs,
Those are just a few.
Green bugs, brown bugs,
Smelly red stink bugs,
Pesky crawling boxelder bugs,
Roach bugs too.
Big bugs, little bugs,
don't forget tarantula bugs.
Last of all, best of all,
I like dead bugs!

Kim, here is the original poem, you can use it as a pattern and
have students write other poems, about anything


Beans, Beans, Beans
by Lucia and James L. Hymes, Jr

Baked beans,
Butter beans,
Big fat lima beans-
Long thin string beans-
Those are just a few.
green beans,
Black beans
Big fat kidney beans,
Red hot chili beans,
Jumping beans too.
Pea beans,
Pinto beans,
Don't forget shelly beans,
Last of all, best of all,
I like jelly beans!