Toddler Theme: Bugs

It's Bug week!  While I don't necessarily love bugs, I do love Bug week.  It was last year's Bug week that made me realize the power of doing toddler themes and exploring new topics each week.  Mia was so intrigued by these little critters that it ended up being a year-long (and still counting) obsession.  I'm not so sure I would have learned this about her otherwise.    

Since we're still blanketed in snow, we had to seek out the bugs indoors.  Our first stop was the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.  They have a little alcove dedicated to native Colorado bugs, but Mia's favorite was the tank filled with Madagascar hissing cockroaches located in the Discovery Zone.  There are magnifying glasses and picture cards showing the different stages of the cockroach life cycle.  We were able to identify larva, pupa, and mature adults in the tank.  Another day, we went to the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster.  There are so many cool things for toddlers to explore here but our highlights were listening to the buzzing bees in a hive, getting up close & personal with Rosie the tarantula (Note: you must be 3 or older to hold Rosie), touching a starfish & horseshoe crab, and of course, seeing all of the butterflies in the rainforest.  We bought a butterfly field guide at the ticket desk and Mia tried matching up the butterflies she saw.  Personally, I enjoyed the warmth & humidity of the rainforest on a cold day so we found a quiet corner and sat for over an hour watching the butterflies flutter all around us.

 

I'll admit, we got a little carried away with bug art projects this week.  I think Mia is still riding an Art week high because every afternoon, she wanted to paint.  I used a white crayon to draw a spider web on white card stock and then let Mia watercolor it to reveal the surprise picture (this is very similar to the clue cards I made for Detective week).  She got a little carried away with the water so it's not pictured below, but it was a fun & easy project.  We also made butterflies with water colored coffee filters, clothespins, pipe cleaners, and beads.  We'll be using coffee filters for another art project in a few weeks so it might be worth picking up at the store, but mostly, I'll be sticking to the items listed on the Supplies page and other basic household items.  Household items like egg cartons, for instance.  Google "egg carton bugs" and you'll get so many ideas.  I jumped the gun and cut our egg carton into 12 singles, but you could use multi-segments to make ants and caterpillars.  Mia painted them and after they dried, I gave her googly eyes and glue.  I had to help cut the holes for the pipe cleaner wings and draw spots with permanent marker (I let her use a Sharpie once...it wasn't pretty).  Our last project was a paper relief bug with painted wings and marker body.

I may be a little late to this game, but have you heard of Hex Bugs?  They sell them at Target for under $10.  Hex Bugs are little robot bugs.  We bought the Nano ones and they vibrate when you turn them on, eerily mimicking real bug movements.  There are larger ones with articulated legs, too.  When we first pulled our Hex Bugs out of the package, we just let 'em go along the floor.  Their movements were a little too life-like for Mia and she hid behind me as I kept them contained in a small area with my hands.  I got out the bag of wooden blocks and we made little mazes and obstacles for the bugs.  Those bugs are sneaky, though, and could escape between the blocks...and then they were off!  Tearing across the living room, dogs barking & Mia shrieking behind them.  So next we pulled out the Duplos and made a bug stadium with one entrance/exit.  Mia made a game of letting 2 bugs loose at the same time and the winner was the bug who escaped the stadium first.  I made a little score chart so we could keep track of the results.  In the science world, this is known as making and documenting observations.  There we go, learning by playing again!

 

A summary of all Bug week activities with links:

ACTIVITIES: Played with bug finger puppets, Constructed block mazes & obstacles for Hex Bugs, Made bug tracks in play dough with little plastic bug figures

ART PROJECTS: Water colored a spiderweb color resist, Made butterflies with coffee filters & clothespins, Created little egg carton bugs with pipe cleaners and googly eyes, Made a paper relief beetle 

OUTINGS: Went to the Butterfly Pavilion and also the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

SNACK: Made "ants on a log" with celery, peanut butter & sunflower seeds

BOOKS: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardema, The Illustrated Anansi by Philip Sherlock, The Snail's Spell by Joanne Ryder, The Best Book of Bugs by Claire Llewellyn, Fireflies in the Night by Judy Hawes, From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman

BIBLE STORY: The bug plagues (gnats, flies, locusts) that God sent down on the Egyptians (3 of the 10 total plagues)

If you'd like to share a photo of your kid doing theme week activities, you can email it to me (email button in the left menu) or tag me on your Facebook photo or use the hashtag #weeklytoddlerthemes on Instagram (if you are private, just make sure I'm following you or tag me in the photo).