Make an Insect Hotel to House Bugs in Winter

We know that bugs are important to have in our yards and gardens when our plants are growing, but bugs need safe places to live throughout the year.

Making an insect hotel at home or at school is a great way to encourage kids to think about where bugs go in the winter and to give them a place to stay.

They’re pretty easy to put together from natural materials and a trip to the hardware store. Nourish and Nestle shares the plans for the one they made in their backyard and why it’s important.

Do you care for or observe insects in the winter? I’d love to know about it!

[Photo: Nourish and Nestle.]

Do you know a little gardener? Check out these DIY Garden Kits, perfect for gift giving.

Check out these insect activity kits and these Insect bug keepers

Next Plan Idea:

Playing with and Learning about Bugs

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

Next Plan Idea:

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