I is for Insect

I grew up with all brothers and we had a huge "wild" hill down the back of our yard. We spent a lot of time down there and as a result, bugs don't bug me much. (Hehehehe I crack myself up.) Except flying cockroaches. Gah! ross! I didn't even know cockroaches could fly until we lived in Arizona for a while and I was non too excited when I found out. 

   Anyway, we discussed insects during letter I week. We mostly talked about how insects have 6 legs and if they don't have 6 legs, they are a different kind of bug. 

   I found this awesome bag of bugs at our local party store. I did not realize what a treasure trove party stores are for preschool teachers who are looking for random little things that box stores only sometimes stock. 

  Well our bugs found their way into my daughter's bug jar that we made her for her birthday one year. (She doesn't mind bugs either.) 

  The kids had fun taking turns pulling out different bugs and then we sorted them into insects and not insects by counting their legs. It was great math practice and a lot of fun.

  My favorite part? When we were done and the kids just got to play with the bugs. According to my 2 year old son, cockroaches say rawr. I think it's pretty fitting cause those things are not my favorite. 

Here's a sneak peak into our life. My husband, also a bug enthusiast, is a teacher. His go to classroom pet? A praying mantis. Usually he just tells his students to bring them in and they find him one. Have you ever seen a praying mantis hunt and eat? It's pretty primal and very cool. Put it on your bucket list, it's worth seeing. 

Apparently there is a type of mantis that flies. He really wants to find one. 

Okay, back to preschool. Here is a two day project we did for letter I week. We did the insect i when we talked about insects and the ice cream I when we talked about ice cream. (You can check out that post here.) The pipe cleaners were a little hard to deal with so next year, we are just going to do paper legs.