Let's Eat an Insect!

WHAT!?!?!?  I bet that title got your attention didn't it???  Well, I'll get to the yummy insect in just a minute, but in the meantime look what else we did . . . .

Since we spent Monday talking about St. Patrick's Day, we only had four fun days of insects.  That was okay because we packed a lot into those four days!  We have a REALLY big day coming up in May.  It is our annual Art Show and each month I try and save a very special piece of artwork to display.  For the month of March, we made our "name bug".

SORRY, I have no ideas why this picture is sideways.

 

I know it may be hard for some of you to believe but, yes my students actually wrote their own names!  If you closely you will see that my sweet Sara has a little trouble with her "S" so I make little "dots" for her to follow.  Her S's have some a long way since September and I am sure in another month or so she will no longer need the dots!

 

We spent Wednesday talking about butterflies.  We fluttered and flew all over the place.  By the way, being a butterfly is a wonderful way to walk down the hallway.  After all, butterflies don't make any sounds!  We topped off our day by making some beautiful "squishy" butterflies.

 

The secret to these little beauties is a lot of paint!  The children glob large spoonful's of paint onto one half of the butterfly.  Next, we fold him and squish!  I love to see the children's faces when paint starts oozing out.  We open them up to see a lovely butterfly.  After they dry, we add his/her body and antennas.  The children draw on their own faces and our fluttery friends are ready to go!

All week long we talk about the anatomy of an insect (you know, 3 body parts, 2 eyes, 6 legs, 2 antennas) and on Thursday, we made our very on insects.

 Everyone got to paint their egg cartons any color they wanted.  The children added their own legs and antennas and of course we added some left over sticker eyes.  The each child decorated their insect with different shapes. 

 

Ahhh . . . finally it was our "Fabulous Fun Friday"!  This would be our last day before Spring Break so I wanted it to be very special.  I said "special" right?  Not messy??  Well, guess what?  We got both!  We spent Friday talking about bees!  It was so fun.  Everyone got to "buzz" around the room and up and down the halls.  (Not as quiet as butterflies, but fun no less!)  We even made our very own bees to take home!  First we taped off some yellow construction paper for our stripes.

 

 

Here comes the fun part!  Next, we painted.

 

We stripped off the tape to reveal some very special bumble bees! 

Don't you just love the wax paper wings?

 

Friday means fun in the kitchen so we buzzed and flew down the hall for some science and cooking fun.  Since I had been teasing everyone about "eating an insect", I knew I better start with that!  Here they are . . . .

 

 

That's right, they are made with bananas, pretzels and chocolate chips.  If you closely, you will hopefully notice that they are anatomically correct.  Each insect has 3 body parts, 6 legs and 2 antennas.  Oh, a few actually have "stingers" :)  They were very yummy!

Hang on, I'm not finished . . . . next we talked about our wonderful friends, the bumble bees and how they help our gardens.  We used Cheetos to serve as our pollen.

 

Then we wiped our hands and pretended to be bumble bees spreading the pollen.

 

 



Of course after all of this we were thirsty.  Finally, we drank our lemonade like butterflies!

 

Butterfly's tongues are like straws,  We cut our straws in half and pretended to be butterflies drinking nectar from a flower.

WOW, what a busy week!  I think I NEED a vacation to recharge my batteries. 

Thanks for visiting with us.  I hope you check on us again!