An interest in insects

  

The children are always finding insects on our playground. This class has been particularly focused on them. They have remained extremely curious throughout the school year. When they find them alive we try to encourage them to put them in the garden to keep them safe. When they find them dead we put them in our bug box that lives in our work/science room. We have also had to have more than one conversation about remembering to be kind to them. Our friends tend to be a bit rough forgetting sometimes that they are delicate. We are hoping that this inquiry might foster some empathy towards these tiny creatures and help us understand more about their world. 

    

When we first become interested in a topic as a class we almost always start out with a group discussion. We start out the conversation asking the children what they already know about the topic. In this case insects. The first thing a friend wanted to let us know that he knew is, “they hurt you”. The class was very quick to say “They don’t all hurt you!” Our friends also knew, “They have six legs”, “They have antennas”, “They have faces” and “Some have stingers”. This is just a sample of some of the things they already knew. 
We then asked what are some of the things we would like to know about insects? We had so many questions! We wanted to know, “Do they have hands?”, “Do they sleep?”, “Do they have bones?”, “Do they have teeth?”, “Do they have hair”, “Where do they live?” and, “What  do they eat?” We wondered how we can find out about more about insects and how can we get our questions answered? The class agreed that books and the computer are great ways to find out information about things were are curious about. 

  

This activity allowed the children to manipulate and explore insects using the overhead projector. 
We read a book today that explained how you know something is an insect. The children were busy counting body parts and legs . We thought it was an interesting thing to find out that all bugs are insects but not all insects are bugs. Hmmm...that’s kind of confusing because if you’re not an entomologist (an insect expert) you tend to use those two words interchangeably. Whatever you call them we are excited to find out more about these strange creatures. 

  

















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