Bugs vs Spiders!

This morning Andrew & I went to a little bug and spider class at a local Wildlife Museum where we are members. When we arrived I realized I'd signed up for the 11am class and then had emailed my friend and told her we signed up for the 10am class. Whoops! Fortunately they let me switch to the 10am class (since we were already there) and Andrew got to go to class with his friend Max.

We started off the class playing with little bug and spider puppets and exploring the classroom. Then we learned the difference between bugs and spiders and sang some songs.


All seven years of info from teaching the insect unit to 2nd graders came screaming back into my head as I listened to the teachers talk to the kids. The best part of the class was checking out the dead and living insects.


Little man also liked it when they paired actions with their attempts at "lecturing" the 2 year-olds about bugs. Here he is jumping like a grasshopper...

and digging like a tarantula (eek!)

Don't be fooled by how attentive he is in these pictures. The little dude ran around the classroom for part of the time and acted like a caged animal high on sugar. Not only was he running, but laughing hysterically. This was mostly during their attempts to "lecture" the 2 year-olds.


Fortunately they figured out quickly that that wasn't going to work and they whipped out all the insects.



I was proud that the little man remembered some of the bugs we'd talked about previously and was able to identify them in the pictures.


We also got to touch a walking stick. One mom would not go near it. It was really funny... this is like the tamest, least icky of all bugs.


After lots of exploring, we made little spiders out of egg carton pieces and pipe cleaners.


Andrew was mostly excited about putting on the googly eyes... since the pipe cleaner part was too hard for him and the other kids.


Then his spider got to do some flying... like spider man :)

Cute little buddies- Max & Andrew

The class was lots of fun... mostly because we got to see some real bugs. My only beef with it was that they tried to dumb down the language for the kids. "Head, chest, tummy" for insect body parts? Seriously? I taught Andrew "head, thorax, abdomen, and 2 antennae" (tied with a song) several months ago and he totally got it. I hate when people don't use hard vocabulary with kids because they think they are too little... when in fact, the new vocabulary words are more interesting and cooler to say... so they are more likely to remember them better. Plus, if they don't understand them the first time they are used, they'll get it eventually (esp. if you pair the words with visuals, actions, motor movements, and music)... and if you teach them the wrong words, you just have to reteach them later... or their teacher does (and trying to tell them their mom taught them wrong doesn't work so well).

Anyway, the class got me fired up to spend some more time talking with Andrew about insects and spiders and doing some fun art projects and activities... and learning some new vocabulary words. I am even going to try doing a hands on Venn diagram activity with him (comparing spiders and insects) and see how it flies...

Check out my toddler blog (click button below) later this week to see how it goes. It could totally bomb, and that would be entertaining. :)

Off to the beach tomorrow!! We did the most fun ocean animal movement activity on Monday, so Andrew and I are really excited to hopefully see some animals tomorrow... at least maybe a crab or two? We'll see.