The Strongest One Story and Insects

We finished the Literature Story The Strongest One from our Reading Streets Language Arts. I loved it. It was a wonderful springboard to teaching the kids about all sorts of insects!

We did a Ladybug Lifecycle, above, and everybody did Insect Reports too, after we read The Strongest One from Reading Streets Literature Series.  A Wicki I found that had some great activities for my kids is HERE at okaloosaschools. Here is my cute granddaughter swimming with me at Cowabunga Bay in September and she not only found a caterpillar (top pic) but a minute later she found a baby grasshopper! It was so cute I just HAD to include it! She’s a cutie!

 The Ladybug Life Cycles above we made into a flap book where we wrote about the stages of a ladybug’s life underneath the illustration and tissue paper art we made. Here  is a ladybug printable lifecycle they glued underneath the flaps. Then we drew ruler lines on the inside flap and wrote about the stages.  Then we topped each twisted brown twig and leaf from tissue paper with a piece of rice (egg) or macaroni (larva and pupa).

My sample of the Ladybug Life Cycle. (small macaroni and shell macaroni- if you do a butterfly life cycle use the butterfly looking macaroni for the final stage). Some years I have bought live ladybugs from Home Depot for $7.00. But it was too late. If you do this activity in the late spring they sometimes have them. The kids loved watching them in my Butterfly Keeper.

Kids LOVE non fiction. And for our library time we each checked out a book on a favorite insect and did INSECT ART and REPORTS.

 We got into cooperative groups according to which insect we wanted to research and we looked in our books and took down facts. We borrowed facts from each other’s books too. Then we watched a film about insects and took some notes individually. I also listed facts on butcher paper for each insect cooperative group.

Here are some of the Cooperative Group’s posters….everybody added facts to the posters of Ants, Grasshoppers, Dragonflies and Fireflies, Beetles and Ladybugs, and Honeybees/Wasps/Yellowjackets.  


The kids added facts to the butcher papers I had illustrated, and they added facts to their own sloppy copy newsprint lined papers. Then I edited them all. The next day we rewrote them on the insect paper.

Some of the insect books we read….and we watched a Magic School Bus Ants in it’s Pants video too.

We had honeybees, dragonflies, grasshoppers, ants and ladybugs.

Insect Card Game at one of the centers for the week.

 I had a lot of information on grasshoppers, ladybugs, bees and ants and some on dragonflies. The only thing I told them is not to choose butterflies because we would do those in the spring.

Ant report after we read the story THE STRONGEST ONE (about ants of course!) We also read the story   The Pocket chart had a few cute poems in them for the week. They weren’t as popular as the microscope though.

 
The kids did a really nice job on their insect reports. I loved them all….I especially loved the illustrations. I can’t help myself! I’m an art minor!  What are you gonna do, ya know? 

K brought in this cool necklace with a real bug! Everybody thought it was pretty incredible!

Wouldn’t YOU love a BUG NECKLACE TOO? Hmmmm?

More books we read.some kids brought insect books from home too. Ant Cities was another popular book we read

Another center game. How many words can you make out of the words grasshopper, dragonfly and butterfly?

Scholastic News Science Spin we read to get us started on ladybugs.

Here the kids are making their life cycle flap books.

You can see the pictures of the lifecycle we glued underneath the tops and then we made ruler lines on the lower part to write about the stages.

Ladybug Life Cycles Flap Books.

Finished Ladybug Life Cycle. Look at that proud grin!!

Cute Dragonfly picture and report….

One center were these plastic insects with viewers and some metamorphosis slides under a microscope.

The kids loved to look at these bug models under the viewers.

It is a very popular Insect Center….My SCIENCE CENTER has insect books, write and wipe off activities and these insects with viewers. It also includes the microscope with slides of insects morphing.

Grasshopper report was really interesting! After they finished their final copies of their reports they got white art paper and traced or did a freehand drawing of their insect. I got lots of good simple drawings HERE at Enchanted Learning. I copied off some of their reports too for kids to glean facts from. Especially if they had chosen something like earwigs or termites!!

Our finished bulletin board on all the insects we studied. All week we read weekly readers, literature books and non-fiction insect books and stories for background knowledge.

We made life cycles and did crossword puzzles too. HERE at bogglesworld are some insect worksheets we used. When we were all done most kids agreed that insects were pretty cool creatures. I had a few bug boxes I had gotten from the dollar store a few years ago and the kids checked them out at recess and found all kinds of bugs in the grass. It was a living museum for a week!  Bugs are good critters.