Playing with and Learning about Bugs

Spring seems like the perfect time for talking about bugs in the classroom or at home, but kids tend to love bugs all the time. Here are some educational ideas having to do with bugs as well as bug crafts and sensory activities.

Learn about the life cycle of a fly with Living Life and Learning. The post discusses all the stages a house fly goes through, and there’s a free printable with the stages labeled and a worksheet where kids can fill in the stages. You could also cut them apart and have kids put the back in the right order and label them.

Active Little Kids has some basic insect worksheets for kids, and Living Life and Learning also has a great set of insect counting cards and puzzles.

You’ll find lots of fun bug activities and worksheets at Teachers Pay Teachers, including a cute bug bingo from Preschoolers and Sunshine to help them learn spring vocabulary and a huge printable set from Pocket of Preschool that includes life cycle, parts of bugs, fun facts and information on determining what is and is not an insect.

This bug sensory bin from Crafty Kids Play looks like a lot of fun, and it uses black beans and paper crinkles as a base so it’s pretty easy to pull together.

Make some playdough and play with bugs in it with this idea from Ruffles and Rain Boots. The color on theirs ended up perfect for the color of dirt we have where I live, but you can make it more brown or red or even black depending on what your local dirt looks like.

Get outside and do a letter recognition “bug spray” activity like this one from Toddler Approved. So cute!

Ice excavation is another classic craft you can give a buggy spin by freezing bugs in your ice. Get all the details from Friends Art Lab.

If you have an outdoor place where you can observe bugs, you might want to make an easy bug hotel like this one from Happy Toddler Playtime. It’s easy to do with stuff from the yard or playground, and a great way to invite bugs to a place you can observe them.

Did you know that October is Squirrel Awareness Month? I didn’t know we needed more awareness of these little creatures, but let’s take it as a sign to learn more about squirrels!

Let’s start with some fun facts via Kids Konnect: did you know there are five subfamilies and more that 280 species of squirrels? The smallest are pygmy squirrels and the largest, the Bhutan giant flying squirrel, can be longer that 4 feet (1.2 meters).

Tree squirrels can climb down trees so fast because their ankles can rotate 180 degrees, allowing them to grab the tree bark as they go down. While most squirrels don’t survive their first year of life, they can live five to 10 years in the wild and squirrels have been known to live up to 20 years in captivity!

Rhythms of Play has more fun facts and tips for observing squirrels if you want to add some real life nature to your nature study.

We always like to start these collections with life cycle and parts of the animal printables, so let’s grab the squirrel life cycle an parts of a squirrel worksheets from Montessori Nature. (It doesn’t look like these are free any more but they have a whole unit study on squirrels you can buy that includes life cycle and parts activities, characteristics of different kinds of squirrels, a printable poster, information about predators and more.)

Grab the squirrel lapbook printable (free with email address) from Homeschool Share to learn the parts of a squirrel, where they live, what they eat, whether they hibernate and more. There’s also a nut taste test printable, a place for making observations about squirrels, life cycle of an oak tree, games and more.

Simple Everyday Mom has some cute squirrel themed worksheets including tracing the letter s, labeling the parts of a squirrel and a letter s maze. She also has more activity pages with a squirrel theme, including matching, a more traditional maze and a counting and graphing activity.

Work on letter recognition with this squirrel and acorn game printable from Teaching Mama. I love the idea of hiding the letters in a fall themed sensory bin for kids to find, identify and match to the letter on the worksheet.

For older kids you can do this “if I were a squirrel” writing prompt from Lesson Planet.

And throw in a little counting with these squirrel and acorn tens frame printables from JDaniel4’s Mom, which you can use to count real acorns or any other little fall themed thing you have handy.

Have you read?

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