Kids love digging up a few good bugs to play with – even if it makes the rest of us squeamish.
And during National Insect Week (June 22nd – 28th 2020), it’s the perfect time to celebrate our wriggly, buzzing, flying and crawling little friends. However, given the current circumstances, you may wish to bring this forward.
From crafts and activity sheets to getting your hands dirty with a magnifying glass and a wormery, we’ve got some great critter-finding activities below!
INSECT CRAFTS AND ACTIVITIES
- Plan a Nature Scavenger Hunt – My Open Country have some great tips HERE
- Make a ladybird paper plate decoration. This site has lots of other insect craft ideas too, such as insect sensory paints and sun catchers.
- Create your own bee by wrapping a pine cone with yellow wool and tying it to a piece of string
- Print out some activity sheets to help you identify bugs: Here are some good ones from Woodland Trust.
- Make a bee or butterfly feeding station: This tutorial is from The Land Trust and you only need a plastic lid or plate and some fruit.
- Paint a rock like an insect: There are tons of ideas on Pinterest. Bees and lady birds are easy for little ones to do, then hide your masterpiece for others to find. Tag it with Scarborough Rocks to join in the fun locally!
- Plant wildflowers for insects to feed on: Kabloom do good ones. Or make your own seed bombs.
- Look at insects under a magnifying glass: Kids will love the detail they can see under a magnifying glass. Take one on a walk or to the park and see which insects you can find!
- Make a bug habitat and put some bugs in. You can buy them from Insect Lore and have them shipped to your home, then spend months watching them change and grow.
- Make a wormery or compost heap and see what the worms get up to. There is a good tutorial here, which only takes about half an hour.
- Borrow a book about insects from the library and learn all about them, what they do and why they are useful.
- Make an insect fact sheet! My daughter made one at school all about wood lice, what they like, where they live and what they eat. Although wood lice aren’t insects, I thought she had a great idea!
For more about National Insect Week, visit www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk where you will find facts and various resources.
- Ideas from Sarah Parker at Forgotten Forest.
- Pictures from Sarah Parker, Pexels and Pixabay.
Massive thank you to Charlotte Gonzalez for a wonderful blog