children's music
  preschool music

 

 

 

 

 

 

Insect Acts:

Activities:

1. Build your own bug, using egg carton shells (single or double) and miscellaneous craft items already in your home or classroom, such as buttons, macaroni, pom poms, foam pieces, etc.)

MATERIALS:
- Glue (Stick glue works best, as the tissue can tear easily)
- Tissue Paper (multi-colored, a single color, or white)
- Pipe cleaner
- Dark Marker

Have the children glue the different cubes of tissue onto the body of the egg shells and make their favorite insect. They can use the pipe cleaner as antenna, or legs, and they can draw the eyes in with a marker.

You can also use wall paper (decorator samples), colored construction paper, or coffee filters to make your insects. Pipe cleaners or strips of construction paper that has been folded in an accordion style can be used for the legs.

- Children can step on wallpaper, or construction paper, trace their 2 foot prints, and cut out their traces and use them as the wings of a butterfly, using the egg carton shell as the body.

- Children can paint on or stamp the white coffee filters and use them as the wings of a bug.

- Children can make a caterpillar or centipede using half of  an egg carton that is split down the middle, and pipe cleaners or glued on strips of construction paper that have been folded in an accordion style for legs.

Depending upon the number of pipe cleaners, children can use make a bug with many legs.

2. Use the kid's fingers to paint a caterpillar, flower, or butterfly.

MATERIALS:
- Paper
- Several colors of tempra or finger paint. You can use 1 or many colors, just remember to wash your hands between each use.
- Black or dark colored marker.

Have the children place their thumbs flat into the paint and press on the paper using Template 24 as a guide.
- For the caterpillar, use the marker to fill in the face, draw in the legs, and the antenna.
- For the butterfly, use the marker to draw in the body, and the antenna.
- For the flower, use the marker to draw in the stem and the seeds in the middle of the flower petals.
- Put all 3 on a single sheet and make a nature scene using a variety of color.  Let dry.

Learning some basic facts about the bees:
 Make sure to prepare an interesting display with the alphabet posters, coloring pages, have some honey for a tasting activity and perhaps an example of beeswax or candle.

There are thousands of different kinds of bees, just like there are thousands of different kinds of people, but all bees have stingers, and it is best to stay away from them. If you see bees flying around in a group, or flying around what looks like a football, stay clear and tell an adult right away.

Bees are found everywhere in the world except where it is very, very cold (the North and South Poles).
3.  Bees are the only insects that make food that humans eat, (honey).  Honey is a natural and healthy sweetener. (Engage in a honey tasting activity or an easy recipe calling for honey as a main ingredient.) Be sure to check for allergies to honey prior to the activity.
4.  Beeswax is used in making candles, and other products. Try to obtain a sheet of bees wax as an example.
6.  Bees live in large groups called colonies.  How do people live?  Do we live in large groups?
7.  Their dwellings (homes) are called hives. Compare their hives to where other insects live.  Ants live in underground farms, etc.
8.  The leader of each hive is the queen.  She directs the activities of the other bees, the workers and the drones.  Many people raise bees for the production of honey and wax or just as a hobby.
9.  The honey bee is important for the farming industry and natural settings in the process of pollination for the production of crops and growth of wild plants. 

Learning some basic facts about the butterflies:
 The monarch butterfly is sometimes called the "milkweed butterfly" because its larvae eat the plant.  In fact, milkweed is the only thing the larvae can eat!  Adult female monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves.  These eggs hatch, depending on temperature, in three to twelve days.   The larvae feed on the plant leaves for about two weeks and develop into caterpillars about 2 inches long. 

After awhile, the caterpillars attach themselves head down to a convenient twig, they shed their outer skin and begin the transformation into a pupa (or chrysalis), a process which is completed in a matter of hours.  The pupa resembles a waxy, jade vase and becomes increasingly transparent as the process progresses.  The caterpillar completes the miraculous transformation into a beautiful adult butterfly in about two weeks. The butterfly finally emerges from the now transparent chrysalis.  It inflates its wings with a pool of blood it has stored in its abdomen.  When this is done, the monarch expels any excess fluid and rests. The butterfly waits until its wings stiffen and dry before it flies away to start the cycle of life all over again. 

Most predators have learned that the monarch butterfly makes a poisonous snack.  The toxins from the monarch's milkweed diet have given the butterfly this defense.  In either the caterpillar or butterfly stage the monarch needs no camouflage because it takes in toxins from the milkweed and is poisonous to predators.  Many animals advertise their poisonous nature with bright colors... just like the monarch!

 

Back