Petals Bug Inspectors

Nature Detectives Day Four: Bug Inspectors

Today we learned a lot about our bug friends! We started our morning finishing up our Tanzaku (Wish Cards) for our Tanabata Bamboo Tree! Evita helped us write our wishes on the paper and we decorated them with stickers, stars, and bamboo leaves! After we were finished with our craft, we stopped by the play dough table with lots of rubber bug toys! Our mission today was to try and make a cozy home for our little insect friends. We finished up our free play time playing with the stickle bricks.

We gathered in a circle for some music time! We started with our, “Good Morning” song as usual then sang some number songs! We first sang, “Once I Caught A Fish” and practiced raising our right hand or left hand. Then we sang, “One Little, Two Little” with the bug toys. Nimo asked each of us to pick out ten bugs from the big pile. Once we got ten bugs in Nimo’s hands, we all counted singing, “One little, two little, three little bugs. Four little, five little, six little bugs. Seven little, eight little, nine little bugs. Ten little bugs in Petals Class!”. If we counted correctly we had the exact number of bugs for the song! We sang, “Itsy Bitsy Spider” next and we practiced putting our mommy fingers on our daddy fingers to do the motion! For our last song, “Ants Go Marching” we all stood up and marched around the classroom as we sang the song. The song got faster and faster as the number of ants went up and we had to listen to the guitar very carefully because the music would suddenly stop and we had to stop!

We looked outside after we finished our snacks and noticed the rain had stopped. Our teachers checked the weather forecast and it said it wasn’t going to rain for a while so we quickly put on our smocks and headed to the park. Our teachers brought a shovel and dug up some of the soil in our flower bed so we could try and find some bugs! Our friends had a great time digging in the soft soil, unfortunately we weren’t able to find any bugs other than ants. We spent a little bit of time running and sliding before we went back to school.

For today’s circle time we learned a lot about bugs! We started by looking at a picture of an ant. Our friends tried counting the legs of the ant. 

L: 8

L: 5! I’m sure!

E: 6

Nimo laid out the magnet numbers and asked L to find the number 8 magnet, L got 5, and E had 6. They took turns asking the ant if the number they had was correct.

L: Hello Ant, do you have five legs?

Ant: No, not 5.

L: Do you have 8 legs?

Ant: Nope, not 8 either.

E: Do you have 6 legs?

I: Six! *pointed at the number 6 magnet*

Ant: Yes, I have six legs!

Nimo: This was a bit tricky because of the two coming out of the head, these are called antennas, Isa can you count how many antennas the ant has?

I: Two! *Got the number 2 magnet* Do you have Two Antennas?

Ant: Yes! I have two antennas and six legs!

We learned that the ant have eyes, but no ears! We tried covering up our ears and thought how had it would be not being able to hear. That’s why ants have antennas, they act as their ears by sensing vibrations. Bugs also use their antennas like hands to feel their surroundings.

L: *Put his two hands on his head to pretend he had antennas and touched Ibrahim’s head* Oh, (my antennas tell me) this is I!

Next we looked at the beetle. We counted the number of legs and and used the magnet numbers to ask the beetle if our guess was right.

L: It’s a ladybug! I want to count too!

Nimo: These are beetles and beetles can do something special too. What do you use to eat?

E: Mouth!

Nimo: Yes, our mouth, and what do we use to chew?

I: Teeth!

Nimo: Beetles have things like teeth and they are able to chew their food!

The next bug was a worm.

I: It has one leg. This one *pointed at one of the ends*

L: It has no legs.

I: It’s like a snake.

L: I want to count… Hmm… Zero?

Our friends got the magnet and asked the worm if he has zero legs.

Worm: Yes, I dont have legs, so i wiggle around! Can you wiggle too?

Petals: Yes we can! *Wiggle wiggle*

Nimo asked us what our noses were for.

E: Smell!

Nimo: Good! We use it to smell and… Can you try this? *Took a deep breath*

Petals: *Took a deep breath too*

Nimo: Our body needs lots of things, water, food, sleep, and our bodies also need air!

L: No, our bodies need energy!

E: I have lots of energy!

Nimo: That too, but all living things need to breathe air. Worms are cool because the don’t have eyes or nose, but they can sense light and move away from it and they can breathe through their skin!

The next bug we learned about was the butterfly. 

 L: No legs!

The legs were hard to see with the large wings so Nimo showed us another picture from a different angle. There we could see the six legs and a long straw mouth! Butterflies have a special mouth that is like a soft straw. They use their straw to drink the juice from flower!

Nimo: Here another fun little thing about butterflies. When you eat ice cream, what body part do you use?

E: Mouth!

L: *Pointed at his tongue*

Nimo: That’s right! Your mouth and tongue. If you put your finger in your ice cream will you know how it tastes?

E: It will only feel cold.

Nimo: Butterflies have special hands that can taste the things they touch!

The last but was the bee. Nimo got the magnet shapes and showed us a triangle and a square. We counted the number of sides.

L: Triangle, three sides.

L: Square has four sides.

We learned that bees use a special shape called a “hexagon”, Nimo got our hexagon blocks to show us what the shape looks like.

E: Hexagon, six sides!

The bees are very clever and make their honey combs with hexagon shapes because they are much stronger than squares or triangles!

L: Don’t make honey with square and triangle!

Thank you all for another fabulous day! Have a wonderful evening and we will see you all again tomorrow for more nature adventures!

Love,

Petals