Invent An Insect

So Juli and I are both completely addicted to Pinterest, esp. for school ideas.  I found the best activity for the kiddos to complete our study of insects. It is originally from Mrs. Miner's Kindergarten Monkey Business.  She gave this activity away as a freebie on her blog and I am so glad she did.  I gave the students the labels from the freebie and told them to create a new insect.  Using everything we had learned, the students knew exactly how to draw an insect correctly and place the labels.  I told them to think about their insect's characteristics as they drew so it would fit what the insect looked like. Some completely got that and made their insect brightly colored because it was going to be a poisonous insect. Others included different types of camouflage based on where they had decided their insect was going to live.   After creating a new insect, they had to write about it. They had to tell what it would eat, where it would live, etc.  They all decided that their insect went through complete metamorphosis.  Apparently no one in my room was all that impressed with the crickets and their incomplete metamorphosis!  The kids really got into designing an insect that reflected them as well which I thought was cute.  One little girl loved our Earth Day/Lorax unit so much that she made the Lorax bug - so cute!  It even sort of looks like him!  I put a few examples below.  While I know that most of us are out of school or on our way out, I wanted to share this great idea from Mrs. Miner so you could file away for next year.

Thank you again Mrs. Miner for the wonderful freebie!  A link to her site is below:
                                                                 

Heather

We have crickets!

As those of you who teach second grade know, a major science goal for second graders is the life cycle of insects. We study both the incomplete and complete life cycles.  The complete life cycle is a lot of fun as we raise ladybugs, butterflies, and mealworms. To study the incomplete life cycle, we raise crickets from the nymph stage.  Our county science kit includes a card to order the little guys along with instructions and containers to create their living quarters.  Their habitat is somewhat of an ordeal to put together. Juli and I did Google how to make cricket habitats and there are a lot of sites out their if your county doesn't provide a kit.  I will forewarn you that the crickets don't have the best smell about them.  It was all Juli could do not to gag as she got close up for pictures.  TpT has a ton of great things for butterflies and mealworms.  There was nothing out there that I could find for crickets, so I made a few of my own. I plan to place them on TpT or you can click on the picture below to download them.  We have just begun our study of crickets, but the students are already fascinated. They check on them everyday when they get in the classroom.  For some reason, they seem less disturbed by the smell than Juli and I do! They had a great time labeling the habitat and predicting what each part was for.  I didn't draw our habitat in the one activity as your habitat may look different from ours.   Feel free to use and let us know how it works out for you. We would love to hear! 
Heather