Crawling Creatures: Wood Bugs

While classifying centipedes last week the children learned that wood bugs belong to the same family - myriapods. The children find, collect, and hold these little creatures in the forest everyday and are curious to learn more and what better way than to make a Wood Bug habitat in the classroom!

Wood Bug Puppet

We examined a diagram of a wood bug and noticed it has an oval body with many legs. The children attempted to draw these shapes to make a puppet

Wood Bug Habitat

To keep the wood bugs alive and healthy we need to know what kind of environment wood bugs like to live in and what they eat. We researched and discovered:

• They're mainly scavengers, eating mainly decaying plants and small animals. 
• They like moist environments
• They are helpful because they eat decayed plant material, ridding the environment of rotting plant matter
• They help loosen the soil as they crawl through it, making more space available for roots to grow

Caring For Creatures

The children identified rules that needed to be remembered while handling and examining the wood bugs. Tomorrow we will collect wood bugs for the habitat and they will present these rules to the children in the other groups and invite them to examine wood bugs during general play times.

Wood Bug Rules Bug Rules

We can:

pick them up

hold them

look at them

play with them

take care of them

We can't:

throw them

squish them

Crawling Creatures: Classifying Centipedes

Child's Question: What are centipedes if they aren't arachnid or insect? 
At the beginning of this unit while reading an insect book centipedes were identified as not insects. Alfie disagreed "Yes they are!" After learning that insects have 3 body parts and 6 legs we concluded that centipedes couldn't be insects and they aren't arachnids either, so what are they??!!

We learned that centipedes (and millipedes and wood bugs) are classified as myriapods - an animal that has a long body composed of many segments with many legs.

The children often find centipedes and millipedes in the forest but they were amazed to see this video of a giant African millipede which is the largest species on the planet! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8Ey_tAqAwQ

What Do Centipedes Eat?

Centipedes and Millipedes are carnivorous creatures and while Canadian millipedes are harmless to humans, centipedes can give a nasty sting.

Centipede Art
The children made centipedes using circles to represent the segments. Their work shows their understanding that centipedes have many segments and legs!

Crawling Creatures: Butterflies

The Children's Question: What do bugs eat?

Last week the children agreed they all wanted to know what bugs eat. The answer is not simple; different bugs eat different things. 

While sorting the plastic bugs Alfie had asked what butterflies eat and Sasha suggested maybe they eat eggs. Sofia said they don't eat eggs they eat pollen, she knows it's true because her mom told her. This prompted us to research further.

What Do Butterflies Eat?

Butterflies can eat anything that can dissolve in water. Instead of eating, butterflies get their nourishment from drinking. They have a long narrow tube in their mouth called a proboscis that acts as a straw.Most adults sip flower nectar, but other imbibe fluids from sap flowers on trees, rotting fruits, bird droppings, or animal dung. Based on these findings the children concluded that it wasn't likely butterflies would eat eggs because they are neither liquid nor sweet.

I Can Eat Like a Butterfly!

Nectar is a sweet liquid produced by flowers. The children mixed a solution by dissolving a little honey into water in colourful cups which represented flowers. They placed their "flower" in the room and with straws in hand flew about the room like a butterfly landing softly next to their flower. They used their "proboscis" to drink the sweet nectar! 

Butterfly Art

After examining the beautiful colours and patterns of butterfly wings the children made their own butterfly by selecting colours of paint to drip onto paper and then folded to create a beautiful design.

Crawling Creatures: Spiders

Assessment: Sorting Insects and Spiders

The children had an opportunity to apply what they have learned by sorting a bag full of bugs according to our agreed criteria and I saw everyone succeed! While sorting the children had a new question "What do bugs eat?" We'll explore this next time!

Criteria:

• insects: 6 legs and 3 body parts
• arachnids: 8 legs and 2 body parts

Spider Research

Yesterday the children had questions about spiders;

• Are they dangerous?
• Do they eat people?
• How many eyes do they have?

We researched on the internet and checked our findings with our knowledge. We learned that spiders can bite people but they don't eat people. We also learned that some spiders are harmless and some are dangerous. If you're interested yourself have a look at this website http://visual.ly/harmless-or-deadly-how-identify-common-house-spiders

Little Miss Muffet

The children made spider puppets and acted out the nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet, but first they had to decide if their spider was harmless or dangerous. Does Miss Muffet need to be frightened?

Crawling Creatures: What Is An Insect?

The children recalled what they know about ants from last week's study.

Sofia offered "Some bugs eat wood. For example, my door is made out of wood and it would eat it in one minute!"

"Those are Carpenter Ants." said Jayla

While reading "What Is An Insect" by Susan Canizares the children saw examples of animals that are insects and those that are not. When the book identified a centipede as not an insect Alfie disagreed, "Yes it is!"

 Upon further research we learned that insects have 3 body parts and 6 legs, centipedes do not have these so they are not insects. Then what are they?  We will investigate this another day.

Another example of a creature that is not an insect are spiders.

The children discovered they have two body parts and eight legs.

Jayla added, "Spiders are different than people because they drink fly's blood."

The book "Spider Names" introduced the children to many types of spiders.

"I know tarantula's." said Lucas 

Zoe wants to know "Do spiders eat people?"

"Are spiders dangerous?" wondered Eva

"Whoa! They have four eyes!" exclaimed Alfie

It seems we have more to learn about spiders!

The children made spiders by tracing their hands and sticking them together to create a spider.

They named the type of spider they made:

Ice Guy Spider - Alfie

Insect Spider - Sofia

Insect Spider - Jayla, because my spider is the same kind as Sofia's

Ant Spider - Eva

Sea Spider - Zoe

Sea Tarantula - Lucas

Big One Spider with Carpenter Ants crawling all over it - Sasha

Crawling Creatures: Do Ants Bite?

Our summer program is in full swing and the children have been organized into new groups. 

This is the Maple Group!

Central Idea: Crawling creatures are an important part of our ecosystem

Line of Inquiry: Features of crawling creatures

Yesterday the children brainstormed all the crawling creatures they could think of. The children had a disagreement about knowledge which I turned into a question for us to explore today.

"Red ants bite"  "No they don't"

"Do ants bite?

After research we learned that some ants bite and some don't. We also learned that ants are insects; they have 3 body parts: head, thorax and abdomen. Also, insects have six legs.

Some of the children started talking about stepping on ants which was a perfect segue into the story Hey, Little Ant by Phillip and Hannah Hoose. A story from the ant's point of view which inspires compassion.

Everyone was eager to make ants using egg cartons and applied their knowledge by giving their ant six legs. They could choose to make a red ant or a black ant. 

What Did I Learn Today?

The children recorded what they learned today.