Experience Nature: The Amazing Bug Catchers

the tiniest lizard ever!

Flanna's Grammie got her a bug box in the spring, and she has just fallen in love with bugs since then!  Her favorites are roley poleys (sp?).   She found a tiny lizard on the back porch the other day, and she kept it in her bug catcher for a few hours before we released it.  She even caught a little bug to feed to the lizard all on her own!

Then, on Wednesday, the girls caught a butterfly.  They made it a nice little habitat with flowers and leaves and kept it for about 30 minutes so they could observe it a bit.  They were so gentle and careful with the butterfly, and I was really proud of their empathy toward it.

When we're all feeling grumpy and stressed and tired and grouchy, just going outside can really lift our mood.  But going outside AND interacting with tiny creatures--now that just makes us plain giddy.

the butterfly in its cozy habitat

searching for bugs

on a mission to find nice bugs

Poor Flanna - this was the day after she sprained her arm, and it still hurt anytime it moved.  

How are you going to experience nature this weekend?

Spring Learning Activities: A Bug Box

While we were visiting my in-laws, they gave us a "bug box."  Flannery was thrilled with the idea of catching bugs.  So, when the rain finally cleared up on one of the last days of our visit, we went "bug hunting" in a nearby field.  We caught a black beetle, a silver beetle, and a ladybug.  Or perhaps should I say, I caught them.  Flanna and my mother-in-law were not very willing to touch bugs with their hands, hah!  But being the country girl I am, I wasn't afraid of some little beetles. 

We kept the bugs in the bug box for a few hours, and Flannery watched them, studied them, drew them, and begged to keep them forever.  But, alas, we let them go at dinner time "so that their mommies wouldn't worry about them." 

This was such a fun learning activity.  Flannery got to see what is needed for a bug habitat.  She got to study how three different bugs move around.  She got to have a little empathy for tiny things.  And she even got to draw and color, her favorite activities of all time. 

The change in humidity from outside to inside made my camera lens fog up.  See the lady bug?

The silver beetle, the black beetle, and the ladybug.  This kid is such an artist.

Are you scared of bugs, or would you catch some with your bare hands?  You know, for education's sake?