This month in the School-age 1 program, the children have been really interested in all the different types of bugs we have noticed since the warmer weather has arrived. To start off our group’s interest, we created some ladybugs. We did this by tracing our hands and then painting them in red paint with black dots. We then used our fine motor skills to cut out the head and body out of black paper and then glued them together to create the beautiful ladybugs. The next activity that we did, we took outside. Educator Hayley had set up some popsicle sticks with markers, pompoms, pipe cleaners, and glue for the children to create any bug of their choosing. At this time, we had noticed a lot of bees around the black top, so a lot of our friends began creating some bees. When Hayley asked them why they were creating bees, one friend responded back saying “they help our flowers grow, so if we have more bees, then we get more flowers!” The next activity that we did was creating a folder with finger painted bugs! Educator Nicole had set out some file folders on the table with a picture of all the different bugs that we see around this time of year. Harrison had pointed out that there was no mosquito in the picture. “I have lots of mosquitoes around my house so I’m going to paint one of those” he had said to his friends. Some of our friends even painted some snails and worms “they are not in the picture but I see them all the time” Skylar had said to the group. This activity got the children thinking and talking about all the different bugs that they have seen or know. Next, we added to the children's interest in a sensory activity where we put some sand and water in the tuff tray, then added a variety of bugs in all sizes into the tray. When our friends had come over to the table, they were exploring the bugs by digging them in the sand and then cleaning them off in the water. At one point, all the sand and water had all mixed together so our friends had started to group the bugs that were in the tuff tray. Clark had sorted all of the spiders into one pile, Sophia had put all of the flying bugs in another pile and all of the bugs that crawled into the last pile.
During all of these activities, our friends fostered their communication skills as they were always talking to their peers about what they were doing and what the names of all the bugs were. They were also fostering their social and emotional skills as they were doing these activities in groups with their peers and expressing how certain bugs make them feel whether it was scared, happy, or even sad. They also fostered their cognitive skills as we had so many new learning opportunities about all the different bugs.
As the children’s interest in bugs continues to grow, the educators will continue to develop our friends' knowledge with everything to do with all the different bugs. We will continue to ask ourselves what each bug does for the planet, how can we tell if a bug is injured or hurt, and research ways on how we can help each bug.
