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Before you start the study of insects, order 4-5 painted lady   butterfly caterpillars. Try these sites:

• Earth's Birthday Project at 1-800-698-4438, earthsbirthday.org order painted lady caterpillars and food

• Insectlore.com order five painted lady caterpillars and food for $13.95

• Gardens Alive at 1-812-537-8650; order item #3013,
  Pkg of 10 Painted Lady caterpillars plus food for $9.95.

• Carolina Biological Supply Company at 1-800-334-5551.
  
  COMPUTER CENTER:
  Explore various multimedia encyclopedias to find pictures and gather information.
  Search the internet for facts and graphic that are useful for young children.
  Copy useful pictures to a editing program such as Paint. (Check copyrights.)
  Add large labels to the pictures.
  Print and laminate the pictures to use on the bulletin board and in the writing center.
  Save the material on a disk.  That way you can have the graphics and information the moment you are ready to use them. (Check copyrights.)
  Use the  list below for useful kindergarten links.   INTERNET SITES
  Make a slideshow using Power Point or Kid Pix with some of the graphics you saved. Use the slideshow to illustrate the facts you are teaching about insects and spiders.

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  READING READINESS ACTIVITIES

PHONICS/LETTER RECOGNITION:
    Numerous methods are used to teach and reinforce letter recognition and phonetic sounds. The methods are varied day to day depending on the children's progress through out the year. The method is not important. The fact that the children do some writing using phonics every day is important.
    The following are examples of just a few methods for teaching letter recognition and phonetic sounds.

*PHONETIC SOUNDS:
Children draw a scene with any insects or spiders.
Students label objects in their pictures either with the beginning letter or phonetically spell the name (does not have to be the actual spelling).
These pages can be displayed on the bulletin board then saved in the child's journal.

*LABELING:
Use sounds to spell words. Teacher ask, "What is the first sound you hear in thorax?"  Students say the sound.  Teacher ask, "What letters make that sound?" Students say, "th".  Teacher writes "th" on the chalkboard.  Students write "th"  on their paper.  Continue until the word is spelled.

*Students draw a large ant. With the teacher's guidance students label the three body parts and six legs of the insect.  Later, when learning about spiders, draw and label the two body parts and eight legs of the spiders.

*BOOKLET: Students make individual booklets about the life cycle of the butterfly (or any other insect or spider). Write and illustrate a few pages each day to practice phonetic sounds and writing skills.  We also used magazine pictures, butterfly ink stamps, construction paper and butterfly stickers in our booklet. 
On page 1. the teacher had the words, "Butterflies can only _____________." The students write the word drink.
The teacher and students spell out one sound at a time.
The teacher writes the letter on the chalkboard.
The students write the letter on their page.
To illustrate the page students find a picture of a flower in a magazine, glue it to the page, and add a butterfly sticker drinking nectar from the flower.
Page 2. "The mother butterfly lays many ____________."
Students write eggs, glue a construction paper leaf to the page, and make eggs with the teacher's White Out.
Page 3. "The eggs ___________."
Sound out and write the word hatch.
Students draw and cut out a leaf on a fourth sheet of green construction paper. Draw little caterpillars  on the leaf.
Page 4. "The caterpillars ________and________. "
Sound out and write the words eat and eat.  Next the students cut pictures of fruits, vegetables and flowers from seed catalogs.  Students use the hole punch to make holes all in the pictures to show the caterpillars had been eating.   Place  small pieces of yarn in several of the holes to represent the caterpillars eating the fruit and vegetables.
Page 5. "The caterpillars ________and ________."
Write grow and grow.
Page 6. "The caterpillar spins a  cocoon."
Page 7. "Out comes a beautiful  butterfly."

*CATEGORIES:
After discussing the different types of classifications of insects or spiders put pictures into like categories.
Example: display several pictures of different kinds of butterflies.
Secretly add a picture of a moth with the butterflies.
Students decide which insect does not belong in the category and why.
Continue with other types of insects or spiders.

*CLASSIFICATION:
Use pictures or plastic insects to put insects in various groups. 
Example: put all of the helpful insects in a group; put the poisonous in a group; those harmful to crops; those with wings; those without wings; those that sting; those that bite, etc.

*VISUAL OBSERVATION AND WRITTEN RECORD KEEPING:
Observe the growth of caterpillars.
Make a large chart to record the daily changes.
Students use words and drawings to record the changes.

Before you start the insect unit, order 4-5  Painted Lady  (see link) butterfly larvae and make a butterfly house.  You can buy the house for $15 when you buy the larvae, or you can make one for less than two dollars.  

MATERIALS NEEDED: Four 24" to 30" cardboard circles. One yard of netting. It's simple! First, staple or hot glue the netting material to one top piece and one bottom piece of cardboard. Next, glue another circle of cardboard over these to hide where you attached the netting. The door is simply where you overlap the extra material.

    After we released the butterflies, we left our cage hanging to hold other insects and even a lizard.
*Encourage the students to bring live insects to class. Research each insect to learn how to provide for his needs.  (See bottom of page for information on caring for insect and spider pets.)

*COMPUTER SLIDESHOW TO REINFORCE READING READINESS SKILLS AND FACTS ABOUT INSECTS OR SPIDERS:
Students use a drawing program such as Paint, or Kid Pix to draw any insect/spider.
With the teachers' help, or the use of picture/word cards from the writing center, the students write the name of the insect.
Teacher put the students' pictures into a slide show presentation using a program such as Kid Pix or Power Point.
Each student tell a sentence about his picture as the slide is played.
If you don't know how to do this, ask the computer teacher.
It is not too complicated and the students will learn facts and learn to recognize the names of the insects from viewing the slideshow over and over.

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  MATH READINESS ACTIVITIES

• MORE THAN/LESS THAN:
  Discuss the concept of more than, less than; there are more insects in the world than people.
  Compare number of girls to boys in the class, etc.
  Observe the pictures on the bulletin. Are their more pictures of butterflies or more pictures of moths.
  Compare other objects in the room.
• ORDINALS:
  Students practice using the words first, second, third, etc. to discuss the life cycle of insects.
  Display pictures that illustrate the life cycle of a butterfly.
  Number the pictures 1-5 to help students see that 1 is first, 2 is second, etc.
  
• TELLING TIME AND PUTTING EVENTS IN SEQUENCE:
  Read the book The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. 
  Remind the students the first event happened at 1 o'clock, the second event happened at 2 o'clock and so on.
  As a class search wildlife magazines to find pictures of all the animals mentioned in the story.
  Mount each picture on cardboard, number the pictures, and attach a craft stick for a handle. Use these as puppets to act out the story in the proper sequence.
  
• ALIKE AND DIFFERENT: 
  Use a picture of a colorful butterfly to illustrate the fact that both wings have the same pattern on each wing. Compare the wings of other butterflies and moths.
  Make butterflies with matching wings.
  Teacher fold a fourth sheet of paper making a crease down the middle.
  Use temper paint to make a < on one side of the page.

  Close the page and rub your fingers over the painted area. Open the page to see >< . This will look like  butterfly's wings.

  Allow the students to make several of these so they can experiment with different colors, add dots on the wings, add antenna, make different sizes, mix colors, etc.

• COMPARISONS:
  Use a collection of insects to show sizes; using name of sizes, small, smaller, bigger, biggest, same size, large, larger, largest. 
  Use the insects to compare how all insects are alike, how insects are different.
  
• COLLECTIONS:
  Encourage students to start a collection.
  Discuss things that can be collected.
  Collections are made of any like objects. 
  Discuss simple ways of displaying a collection such as a shoe box, egg cartoon, a Tupperware container, etc.
  Allow students to show-and-tell their collection. 
  
• COUNTING:
  Count the butterflies, count the moths, etc.
  Count how many insects you can catch.

  Each student make a picture of a butterfly net. Teacher set out ink pads, insect stamps, or small nsect stickers. Students stamps insects either on the picture of the net or on a separate page and cut and paste insects to the net. Label with the number of insects.

  I made the picture above using Kid Pix. I drew the net and used the stamps to make the insects.  Students could do the same, plus add the number to show how many insects were in the net.

• GRAPHING:
  Graph the students favorite insects and spiders, insects that are most repelling to them, insect they would like to have as a pet, insects they would touch, insects they would not touch, etc. 

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Using the Internet:
There are numerous methods for using the internet to gather information that will be useful in a kindergarten classroom.
The internet provides unlimited resources to a teacher preparing lessons and gathering visual information to present to kindergarten students.
However, this will take time and effort on the teacher's part.  
Not all of the information found is necessary for kindergarten students.  Bits and pieces of essential information are found as the teacher searches site after site.
One suggestion for organizing useful information and pictures would be to save it on a disk. (Check for copyrights.)
Start a collection of disk for each unit you teach. 
Add disk as you find new information.  Therefore, when you are ready to show pictures of the various types of insects, you slip the prepared disk into your computer and have all of the pictures in one location.
Better yet, use the pictures to make a slideshow using Kid Pix or PowerPoint.  
If you don't know how to save pictures from the internet to a disk, or how to make a slideshow, just ask the computer teacher at your school. 

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INTERNET SITES: 

Insects:
Grubo.com site for ordering mealworms, crickets, worms
STICK INSECTS, PRAYING MANTIS , COCKROACHES, CRICKETS, REARING CATERPILLARS  care sheets with information on housing, feeding and handling from the Bug Club
Ant lion Pit: A Doodlebug Anthology collection of resources including videos of ant lion feeding behavior and metamorphosis.
Keeping and Raising Mealworms comprehensive guide to the raising and keeping of mealworms
Raising House Crickets  from Melissa Kaplan
Gordon Ramel's Entomological Website  care sheets with information on beetles, sticks, mantis, roaches, spiders and wasps.
Entomology Image Gallery  Iowa State University provides large colored images
SPIDERS:
TARANTULAS
SCORPIONS 
Tarantulas - pop down into a tarantula's burrow and take an interactive tour with National Geographic.
Tarantulas as Pets - includes pictures and care information
                Back to Top

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Share your Insect & Spider unit suggestions. Share your comments.

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