Bugs

The introduction to our study of Bugs was a brainstorming session of words to develop our theme word bank. As the children gave me the words I printed them on blank cards and had the children illustrate them. After we were finished with as many ideas as we could think of we sorted the cards before putting them into the pocket chart.

The categories the children came up with were:

Spiders

Flying insects

How they move

Food

Enemies

Kinds

Where they live

Later on in our theme we added a new category called life cycles.

Over the course of our studies the children brought in a number of bugs for discussion and comparison. At present we have 3 "wild caterpillars" that Cassie brought in that made a tent (a cocoon) and then inside formed the pupa. Unfortunately, the caterpillars we ordered did not develop properly or follow through their stages to emerge as butterflies, this led to an interesting discussion as well.

Following our brainstorming session the children made a web about bugs they were familiar with. The web had to include all the things they knew about bugs and at least one thing they wanted to learn about. The children could use written words or pictures.

Our next activity was a nature walk. We talked about places to look for bugs prior to our walk. Our discoveries included: ants, ladybugs, beetles and spiders outside the school and around the playground. This activity was followed up with a discussion about bugs and insects. Now, through using a poem, About Bugs by Joanne Oppenheim, and a follow-up discussion, characteristics of bugs were identified. The students then looked at pictures of bugs and insects and decided which ones were insects according to the characteristics they gathered from the poem.

To check for student understanding the students created their own bugs using pastels and a description of their bug. The description was to include a name for their bug, and any other information such as what it can do, where it lived, what it eats and an interesting fact. The picture had to show that it has 6 legs and 3 body parts.

Our Father’s Day project also included our topic of study. Students could choose to make a dragonfly, ladybug or bee out of clay to hang on the wall. One parent later suggested that they could be put out in the garden, but you would have to make sure that however you painted them could endure the outdoors.

The first actual insect that we did our reading around was a butterfly and its’ life cycle. The book, Butterfly Alphabet, was read to the group. Following the story a list of words for each letter of the alphabet was generated as it related to butterflies. The students were assigned a letter and directed to create their own sentence for a class butterfly book. Once their sentence was written they colored a butterfly wing, which captured their letter in the pattern.

To lead us into the next story students logged one food they ate for each day of the week. (This was done as an independent activity.) The kinds of foods were sorted and then graphed.

Our next story was The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I read the story to the children, than the children read the story with me (choral reading). Activities that followed included a role play using story props with the whole group. This story was then put in a bin to be used as part of our literacy centers. Our whole group activity was a sequencing of the story where the students were provided with sentences to cut out, sort and glue in the correct order. Prior to sequencing we focused on the days of the week and the children used this to help them with the sequencing of events.

Following our fiction story we went back to non-fiction. Each time we worked with a book in this unit we talked about the differences between stories and factual information. The big book, Caterpillar Diary was used this time and children discussed the differences between a butterfly life cycle and a moth life cycle. Children were provided with pictures to use for sequencing the life cycle. The pictures were glued into their journal and similarities and differences were noted. We also used our live specimens for observations.

Next students worked with a partner to select a question from a list and look for the answer in information that they were provided with. They wrote their sentence on large chart paper with the answer. Then to share their responses they rotated from chart to chart reading each others questions and answers. As they gathered in a whole group some discussion evolved around what they learned or what they found most interesting.

Some of the questions were:

How high do butterflies fly?

How many kinds of butterflies and moths are there?

Why do caterpillars turn into butterflies?

How do butterflies go to the bathroom?

Are butterflies poisonous?

What are the differences between butterflies and moths?

How do butterflies communicate?

Where do butterflies go when it rains?

Where can I find butterflies and moths?

What are butterflies and moths?

What do butterflies eat?

To support the research end of our topic of study we used the Magic School Bus Video about butterflies. The children were asked to listen and watch for any new information that we had not encountered in our other research. Students provided a reflection in their journals.

During our insect study one of our students, Alex brought in a bucket containing frog eggs and tadpoles. These specimens lead to a study of the frog life cycle. We compared this with the butterfly life cycle. The big books gave us written support for this discussion. We also used Gail Gibbons’ book, Frogs. Students used this information to fill in a chart showing the life cycles of frogs and butterflies. The chart was a web where the students drew and labeled the lifecycles around the outside and then noted what portions were the same in the center of the chart. As we did a study about ants and bees we added their lifecycles to this same chart.

The children had fun exploring the change in voice when reading this book during reading times as the words that needed to be spoken in Effie’s voice were printed in bold. The story Effie also guided us into some story writing along with Chris Van Allsburg’s story Two Bad Ants and the song The Ants Go Marching. To inspire ideas for the writing the children pretended they were ants by crawling on the floor and looking at objects in the classroom through a magnifying glass. Then a discussion followed about what things would look like to an ant crawling on the ground. This discussion lead to writing a story that was modeled by the teacher demonstrating the ant’s point of view. The children then had the opportunity to write their own versions. Their stories were to include what type of ant they were, what they looked like, how big they were, where they lived, what things they saw and/or what adventures they would have. Some children had difficulty writing a fictional piece of writing versus just generating facts.

As the end of the school year drew near we did a mini study on bees and wasps. Alex brought in a wasp nest that his family had split open to explore at home. When he brought the nest to school the children could see the cells and some dead wasps still cocooned in them. The students used a Venn diagram to compare bees and wasps. Then the lifecycle of the wasp was added to our web that we had done previously. A very good web site we used was Buzzing Bees: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bees/dances.html

To culminate our study of insects we had a little bug party. At the party the children shared their insect mask dance using movements. The audience had to try and identify what the bugs were trying to communicate. We went back to see what we knew at the beginning and what questions we had and then reflected on what we had learned. As a final activity, had time permitted, I would have had the children make up a riddle for their favorite insect and then shared them with their friends. We did however integrate our unit with math where the children created their own addition and subtraction problems using insects. The biggest reward for me as the teacher was how the children would not kill a bug and when one was in our classroom they were eager to take it back outside.