Arachnids, Bugs, Insects
May 16, 2008
We had much more time this week to appropriately tend to our topic, INSECTS. Because all of the children, both boys and girls alike, are fascinated by these creepy crawlies, we were delighted to examine them more closely. Since bugs can be found most everywhere, we were able to examine some first hand, and go beyond book learning alone. Yes, we even have an occasional visitor in the form of an ant...our juice leftovers can be very sticky! Don't be alarmed. This just affords us a "teachable moment" regarding cleanliness.
So what did we learn about insects? Here are a few of our discussion topics:
INSECTS have three body parts (head, THORAX, abdomen) and six legs.
Spiders don't measure up. They have only two body parts and eight legs, hence their classification as ARACHNIDS.
ANTENNAE do most of the seeing, hearing, feeling and touching for bugs (catchall category)
The PROBISCUS is the strawlike mouth that most insects use for sucking up nectar and other foods. Many children included it in their drawings and we had many conversations with this new vocabulary word included. When introduced during authentic moments and at their level, they are very quick to pick up new vocablulary words.
ENTOMOLOGISTS are the scientists that study bugs. We did lots of observing this week, sometimes using our magnifying glasses and sometimes just our eyes. But no matter how we observed, we made note of properties we had learned about during discussions.
We learned that insects MORPH (metamorphosize) from EGGS, to LARVA, to PUPA (cocoons/chrysallis) to ADULTS. We are watching our larva with great interest. Our kit arrived with five scrawny caterpillars, who soon fattened up, spun chrysallis and now hang from our netted container. We hope they will emerge as beautiful Painted Lady butterflies within the next 5-7 days. After observing some more, we plan to set them free in our field. Cross your fingers...each year brings varying degrees of success.
We used the ladybugs spotted back to help us demonstrate a lesson on SYMMETRY. The spots also helped us with a simple math lesson as we created equations on the board that depicted the number of dots on each side of our bug. We practiced our small/capital letters as we aranged several circles to form a caterpillar with a letter of our name on each orb. We made spiders with eight legs that nest in the webs we made by rolling marbles around in paint. Everything hangs in our room making it look like a macro version of the bug world!
NEXT WEEK we will discuss the FIVE SENSES. Any additions are welcome.
Reminder that we are walking to the Lincolnwood Firehouse on Mon. We will leave at 9:15AM/12:30PM. Chaperones are welcome to walk along with us or meet us at the station.
