Preschool Powol Packets

Our Nature Club theme this week was bugs, so we decided to make some cute Rock Bugs as part of our activities! You can make your own rock bugs just for fun, as part of an insect theme, or a letter theme (B is for Bugs, I is for Insect, etc.)! I invited the kids to make their bugs based on real bugs or insects (like bees, butterflies, ladybugs, or any other insect of their choice) or based on an imaginary critter they felt like creating. Simple Supplies: * rocks * paint and paintbrushes * pipe cleaners (chenille sticks, fuzzy sticks, or whatever you call them!) * hot glue (I prefer a "low heat" hot glue gun... the kids love it!) * scissors * wiggly eyes * jumbo craft sticks (ours were provided by Craft Project Ideas ) * any other supplies you want Easy How To: My favorite art and craft projects are the ones that let the children create on their own without a pre-conceived idea of what their project should look like when it is done.  To that end, I l...

Spring, summer, insects, and flowers all have one amazing ingredient in common...bees! Okay, they might have a few other things in common too, but we love bees!  We love to watch them work during the spring and summer, we love to talk about how they make honey, and we love to talk about how they grow.  Earlier this spring we even had a field trip to a friend's home to see the inside of her bee hives.  Bees are amazing!! Today I am sharing a set of free honey bee life cycle cards! These {FREE} honey bee life cycle cards can be printed on cardstock and laminated for repeated use.  They work wonderfully in a Montessori bin, as a "memory" game, or just to teach insect metamorphosis!  The printable set also includes small "reference" cards with the complete cycle on it and a reference mini-poster as well! I hope you love them!!  I always enjoy hearing from you when you use them too! Click here to download the {FREE} file! And ...

Our yard may need a warning sign: any ladybug that lands here can expect to be held, named, loved, and temporarily relocated to an observation-friendly habitat by very little hands.  And you can expect to have a ladybug preschool craft created in your honor. Yes, our kids love ladybugs!  We also love egg carton crafts, so these little bugs were extremely popular! The best part?  They use very  common materials.  I literally opened our craft drawer and said, "How can make a ladybug craft today?"  And these adorable little bugs were born! Your kiddos can make their own set too!  Here's the easy How-To.  Of course, you can easily adapt the concept to whatever supplies you happen to have on hand or whatever mood you are in.  Go on...have fun!  And, just for you ladybug-loving friends out there, I included ten Fun Ladybug Facts below too! Egg Carton Ladybug Preschool Craft Simple Supplies: * Egg carton c...

Whatever you call them, roly polys (or potato bugs or pill bugs or wood lice...) are everywhere!  They are great to learn about and fun to carefully experiment with!  Warning: This post has close up pictures of pill bugs!   So what is the deal with pill bug names?!  It can definitely be a bit confusing.  I will be calling them pill bugs, but let's take just a quick moment and talk about names and classification.  Remember how living things are divided?   Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species Pill Bugs are in the Animal Kingdom, Arthopod Phylum (which includes spiders, insects, and crabs), and the Order Isopoda.  Isopoda includes literally thousands of species that look very similar, but some live on land and some live in the ocean.  The pill bugs that we see all over the world on the land are all in the sub-order Oniscidea, which also includes literally thousands of species (about 5,000 known).  There is...

The next bug in our Backyard Bug series is the cicada! What is that buzzing sound?  Oh!  It's a cicada!   Every summer we notice the cicadas start "singing" about the beginning of June.  And while I know some people who find the sound obnoxious, I look forward to it...almost as much as I look forward to not having to wear a jacket!   Cicadas are large (often 1" to 2" long) insects with wings that have very clear veins in them.  They have two easy-to-see eyes and three very small "ocelli."  There are about 2500 species of cicadas, and they are very common in warm tropical and subtropical areas.  Ocelli: small eyes Cicadas are often heard before they are seen: during the hottest part of the day they make a loud clicking sound by vibrating part of their abdomen like a drum...over and over very quickly!  They have been recorded "buzzing" at over 120 decibels!  And even though both males and females have the s...

The second bug in our Backyard Bug series is the Monarch Butterfly: Monarch butterflies are common throughout North America and several other world-wide locations. They are easy to spot with bright orange wings with black stripes and a black border with white dots. Monarchs living in warm southern areas spend their whole lives in the same relative area while monarchs living in the northern end of their range (in the northern United States and Canada) make a remarkable migration that they are famous for!  In the fall, the monarchs leave their colder habitats and fly south to Mexico and the southern United States.  They overwinter in a form of hibernation known as diapause , then return north in the spring.  Amazingly, the entire migration takes much longer than any one butterfly will live, so the returning butterflies are 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generation monarchs! Diapause:  a "pausing" of growth, reproduction, and metabolism similar to hibernation th...

The first bug in our Backyard Bug series is the Leaf-footed Bug: Leaf-footed bugs are easy to spot because their back legs are flattened in a leaf-like shape, There are actually over 1900 species of leaf-footed bugs with a variety of body shapes and lengths ranging from 1/2 an inch to 2 inches.  The southeastern United States has seven leaf-footed bug species. Most leaf-footed bugs are herbivores and enjoy fruits and plant sap.  They have pointy mouth parts that can easily suck up sap.  Some leaf-footed bugs can be major pests in fruit orchards. Leaf-footed bugs rarely bite, though there are reports of people claiming to have been bitten.  The leaf-footed bug's preferred defense mechanism is releasing a nasty smelling liquid on whatever is bothering them. What do skunks and leaf-footed bugs have in common? They can both make strong smells! Birds, spiders, and some bugs all eat leaf-footed bugs. Adult leaf-footed bugs can spend the wi...

This summer I am super excited to bring you a brand new series inspired by my insect-loving kiddos: Backyard Bugs!!   Each Tuesday this summer, beginning next week, I will post about a "bug" that is commonly found in backyards.  Each post will include things like what they eat, what eats them, their life cycle, interesting biology, observation/learning activities for your preschoolers, and whether or not the bug is safe to pick up.  All the bugs will be linked to this post, so you can pin, bookmark, or favorite this post and come back to it to learn more about common bugs each week! I should also clarify that by "bug" I mean insects, arthropods, and other small crawly critters...not just "true" bugs.  :) So, are you excited?  I'm excited!! Here are the bugs I already I have planned...if you have any requests, feel free to send them to me!  And, each bug on this list will be linked to its post as its week comes up! Backyard Bug...