Insect Picture Strips Are Multipurpose for Science and Math and Fine Motor Growth

Welcome to Becca's Heart for Early Childhood Education blog! Insects are one of my favorite science concepts to teach with preschool and primary age children. Did you know that 75% of all animals are arthropods? Arthropods include 4 kinds: centipedes and millipedes, crustaceans (crabs), arachnids (spiders), and insects.

Insects are the largest group amongst the arthropods. Here are just some to get you brainstorming before you challenge your little ones about how many they know:
*grasshoppers
*fleas
*lice
*mosquitos
*flies
*bees
*butterflies
*moths
*praying mantis
*dragonflies
*mayflies
*beetles
*fireflies (lightning bugs)
*wasps
*hornets

Insects' bodies have 3 parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. On the head it is usually one pair of antennae and two compound eyes. They have multiple parts to their mouths which include a pair of mandibles. The thorax has 3 sections or segments and each has 1 pair of legs. If an insect has wings those are attached in the 2nd and/or 3rd segments but there are many insects without wings. Metamorphosis varies among insects with some having incomplete (larvae stage like grasshoppers) and others have complete (transformation from caterpillar to pupa to adult like butterflies).

The worksheet or activity sheet can be used many different ways. The main way that I wanted the children to use this was for their worksheet copy to be cut into the strips/rows. Then each student needs to use the single-hole puncher to punch holes in the first one shown and then any others that match it.

Gripping the hole-puncher helps develop strength in their dominant hand that they use to hold a pencil, crayon, and paintbrush. This is so vital for littles when they are between 3-7 years old. ECE teachers can have children color the insects first before doing the hole-punch matches.

It also might help them cognitively to have them only color the first one of each row and the subsequent ones that match instead of coloring all that are pictured.

This activity sheet took about 45 minutes to 1 hour to create in Google Docs. Maybe less time but definitely use a copy and paste method of placing the clipart images in order to save lots of typing time! There are so many different kinds of insects that you could put a different stack out for the kids every day of your insect unit!

Below is a photo from a recent post I did about setting up a sensory explore station with jumbo tweezers and little containers along with some nature items to give kids a simulated outdoor scene for more insect matching practice that can strengthen their pinching fine motor skills. A copy of the worksheet was cut into the individual boxed insect pics for the children to do the sorting.

Another variation for using the worksheet is a pencil (or colored pencil or crayon or marker) task to review by x-ing out each insect within a row that doesn't match the very first one shown. What doesn't belong is important cognitively. Children need to puzzle or reason out why one image is  correct while a different one isn't.

Good luck helping little ones figure out the world we live in! Also stop and think about other worksheets/activity sheets that you find at the store or online that can be altered and used in a way that builds other concepts or skills in your students. For the insect picture strips recognizing the differences in the 6 insects shown throughout these strips is important for science. One-to-one correspondence (matching) is a math numbering concept. And using a single-hole puncher to grip and punch small dots out of matching insects is a vital writing tool fine motor skill developer.

Having a passion for ECE children and curriculum:
Becca S

Illinois teacher certification endorsements:
Birth to Grade 3
FACS grades 6-12

and approval:
General science grades 5-8

Primary Sensory Station About Insects For Fine Motor Skills and Science

Welcome to Becca's Heart for Early Childhood Education blog! This posting shares my heart's desires for ECE and Science. My main focus is setting up a sensory station for children to explore, learn about identifying and matching different insects with different ways to strengthen their fine motor skills.

Set up a garden or outdoor scene to create a context where children will find insects in nature, their natural setting. Small containers with jumbo tweezers aid for young children to pick up small clipart pics of various insects and to sort, all while developing their cognitive skills essential in math and science and their writing tool gripping.

Small river rocks, flower arranging dried grasses, and butterflies and dragonflies meant for wreaths and floral bouquets are additions to simulate the outdoors. Placemats and/or hand towels with nature designs can anchor the sensory explore station to a set spot on a table or low bookcase.

The worksheet copies will be the focus of their own post. It took about 30-45 minutes to create this worksheet and I formatted it to be multi-purpose to get the most for science, math, and fine motor growth. The primary strategy I thought of was cutting the worksheet apart into the strips/rows and asking children to grip and squeeze the single-hole puncher on the insect(s) that match the very first one in the row. Before they do that you might ask them to color only the ones that are exactly the same as that first pictured insect.

Maybe they need to follow a designated color code? Like purple for a butterfly. Yellow for a bee. Other insects I used include fly, water beetle/bug, and horned beetle.

Add a vase of real flowers if possible or maybe a small silk cluster. A small potted plant would be great addition to the explore station, too.

Depending on the number of children allowed at the sensory station, another pair of jumbo tweezers might be needed. On the worksheet I had 6 insects to identify but for the station and your usable space that may need to be limited to 3 or 4. Timing allowed to be at the station would be another consideration. Little ones don't like to be frustrated so the explore station shouldn't be too big or have too much to do. Be willing to make adjustments if you find out that they need fewer things to do for the time they have to share the space.

A big passion of mine in ECE is giving science equitable time and space within the classroom space and weekly schedule. Choosing a science theme book for your read out loud time is one way. Lots of science books about inventors, environments, space exploration, and reference in your classroom library are an important way to give science equity in your room. Picking a decorating theme that's about animals, plants, rockets, gears and wheels would be another addition to keep science in your environment.

I've used a general outdoors with a bit of camping broad theme in recent years, but I'm thinking my next classroom space will have a four season combined with birds décor theme to help organize the room. But I'll save those thoughts for a future posting.

Sensory stations like what I've pictured focuses primarily on the tactile, touch. Pinching the jumbo tweezers to pick up the small pictures would be one task for touch. Maybe one of the containers could be for holding the river rocks. That would give the children more pinching or gripping practice.

Using the hole-puncher to identify and match insects could be in a station right next to this one. The hole-puncher involves eye-hand coordination and gripping strength.

Get little ones during their primary years of early learning involved in hands-on approaches like a sensory explore station that develops their small motor skills and cognitive intelligence.

With a passion for ECE,
Becca S

Illinois certification endorsements:
Birth to Grade 3
FACS grades 6-12

and approval:
General science grades 5-8

Preschool Science and Fine Motor Skill Development through Land vs Ocean Sensory Bin

Welcome to Becca's Heart for Early Childhood Education blog! I'm Becca S. This posting will be to share a great science sensory bin idea that can be used for Earth Day or at any time throughout the year when you want your littles to distinguish that the Earth has 2 basic 'parts' to its surface--land and ocean.

The colors blue and green are going to be color codes for this sensory bin:

Above: this photo shows the supplies I'm going to use: purple plastic bin to hold everything; sorting cups for each color/Earth part; and small items to sort out into either bowl; crimped gift bag filler to help fill the bin; blue and green glass beads that are found in the flower arranging/crafting supplies at different stores; and some glitter painted foam 'berries' that are used as well for sorting or not sorting.

I always like to give young children a push or should we call it a puzzler to their young cognitive skills and purposely ask or point or include something that doesn't belong. In this case, it is the lavender/grape colored foam 'berries'. The children shouldn't be putting these into either bowl. Take time for teacher talk and ask the children about 'blue' water. If they haven't been to an ocean, ask about a river that is near where you all live. Maybe your area has a lake that is popular. Same for the 'green' land. Ask if they know the name of their town, street, state, etc. Do they know the name of their country? Do they know that there are other countries?

A globe would be a great asset to have in your science explore station space. If you don't have a globe, maybe you can display a world map image that will show kids the different continents and oceans. Make sure to let them know where their country is and their location within the country on that image. Help them make connections. Earth Day can be about the very basics especially for young children's minds. Keep it simple.

Make sure children have several opportunities throughout a week to use this sensory bin. Older kids could have clip art images to sort of items that represent different waters and land features: pond, lake, river, mountain, hill, meadow, etc.

The children will be strengthening their fine motor skills by pinching the glass beads and blue 'berries' to pick up and place into the appropriate bowl. For the science skill development other than they are getting sensory/tactile/touching development, make sure there is an exchange of dialogue about land and water.

Teaching and learning in the USA heartland,
Becca S

Illinois teaching certifications:
FACS grades 6-12
Birth to grade 3/ECE

approval:
general science grades 5-8

Preschool Science and Motor Development Land vs Ocean Mammals Activity

Welcome to Becca's Heart for Early Childhood Education blog! I'm Becca S. Go to my previous post to learn more about some of my degrees and experiences in teaching. I love being creative and love learning and teaching! This activity involves one of my favorite cognitive areas-science!

In the USA, Earth Day is celebrated on April 22. So I have an animal themed activity that is designed to check whether your little ones understand that animals can live in different environments. Within those environments, their habitats can vary. Birds have nests in trees and bushes. Bears have caves. Bees have hives.

In the previous post I showed a small-ish tarp and this activity also uses a tarp. If you are using a large indoor space, a plastic tablecloth or shower curtain could also serve as your base.

Here's the 5.5' x 7.5' tarp bought for about $2.50 plus tax.

The other 2 major supplies for early science are foam puzzle pieces I found at Dollar Tree recently. And because they have a variety of topics I latched onto 2 sets that had land mammals and the other had ocean creatures. What great resources to help little ones build their cognitive knowledge about classes of animals! And the 2 major supplies that are mainly to be used as eye-hand coordination targets are the frisbee discs. 

The cool thing is that these flying discs are going to be your two-fer in this activity. Besides being the targets, their colors are going to serve as codes for green grass/land and blue water/ocean categories.

Land vs Ocean Mammals Activity=

Close-up photos of the puzzle pieces:

Before doing this gross motor underhanded tossing activity please take time to have circle group or table meeting and discuss each animal featured. The land mammals show just the faces but there are distinguishing body parts that you can emphasize: whiskers, snouts, snout, tusks, mane, and more to point out and ask children questions on.

The ocean animals have tentacles, claws, tails, arms, and other characteristics to draw focus about. The gull can be set aside and used as a challenger puzzler mystery identifying question to the preschoolers. It's always good to stoke their curiosity and sense of mystery and wonder!

When you are ready for them to gather around the perimeter of the tarp, randomly go around and distribute the pieces. Before they can toss to "land" or "ocean" target, they have to say out loud what the animal name is and where it lives.

The eye-hand coordination building through this activity will also benefit the children as this skill is vital for writing and reading. Encourage children to toss their puzzle piece to hit the correct target.

For Earth Day let's encourage appreciation for all animals whether they live on land or in water!

Teaching and learning in the USA heartland,
Becca S

IL certification endorsements:
FACS grades 6-12
Birth to grade 3 ECE

and approval:
General science grades 5-8

Preschool Science and Motor Development with Bunny Inspired Activities for Indoor or Outdoor

Welcome to Becca's Heart for ECE blog! This post features a dual purposed activity to support science and motor development.

I'm Becca S, a teacher with both FACS degree/teaching experience as well as Elementary with Early Childhood degree. I have lead teacher daycare experience with 3-5+ year olds and private Christian kindergarten teaching  experience. After all those previous years, this winter and early spring, I applied and received ECE endorsement by ISBE (Illinois). Wahoo!! That's for Birth to Grade 3! I'm super excited about this. I took the professional exam and scored 278 out of 300 so I was stoked about that and then ISBE evaluated my transcripts and approved the endorsement. Yea!! Now that you know a little more about me, let's focus on the springtime idea for science and physical skills.

For the younger ECE children, providing a wide range of activities that can develop both fine and gross motor skills are very important. Fine or small motor are those finger gripping and pinching skills that help with holding a pencil, picking up tiny objects, and moving a paintbrush. Gross motor skills in this activity will mostly be arm movements like underhanded tosses. This activity can be used to let children share what they know about rabbits and bunnies OR the glass beads can be a color code for water and land features of the Earth's surface.

Earth Day option: Blue Beads are tossed at a distance after answering a question about water or oceans. A basic early content in science and particularly for Earth & Space Science is our planet Earth's surface is made of 2 parts: land and water. With older ECE children in 2nd grade and 3rd grade introducing them to the terms of continents and oceans will be cognitively more developmentally appropriate. With younger ECE children in the preschool to 1st grade range the Earth's surface should be referred to in terms of land and water. Each child can share where they've seen water: sink, bathtub/shower, garden hose, puddle, creek, pond, lake, river, and others.

Before sharing more of the educational components let's get this versatile location activity ready=

Set-up for this activity:

Have small tarp...will travel! If you have a large open indoor space you could use a tablecloth or shower curtain instead but a clean tarp could still be used inside.

This 5.5' x 7.5' was only about $2.50 with tax and coupon/sale at Harbor Freight Tools, so this was a great bargain multi-use purchase!

Below: Rabbit tray with green glass beads; read below for 2 options for usage:

Earth Day option: Green glass beads can represent land so before a child tosses a green glass bead she/he must share something found on land, a feature of the land portion of Earth. Children might suggest grass, dirt, hills, mountains, yard, and others.

Fine motor skill focus: As soon as I saw these Easter/spring rabbit deviled egg trays, I wasn't thinking food display but for the egg-shaped divots to hold marbles or glass beads or pom pons. At Dollar Tree was where I purchased these 2 trays and the flower arranging supply of decorative blue glass beads. Children can stand around the perimeter of the tarp. Remember the dimensions are small enough for this to be a good distance for this age group to get some underhanded and overhanded tossing practice (gross or large motor skills).

Bonus benefit: What is another HUGE important skill for writing and reading is the eye-hand coordination that the children will build when they are eyeing which tray to toss to and which divot might hold their glass bead!!! I LOVE a two-fer!!!

Animal focus: Science-wise, the teacher can guide questions not only about distance and range of motions but could have children take turns tossing AFTER they answer a science content question about rabbits. That would mean this would have to be a follow-up activity AFTER story time book(s) about bunnies. (Rabbits' babies are called bunnies. Rabbits can hop.)

Give each child in your group 5-10 opportunities before things get too wild or boring. When the trays and beads are collected back, have 1 final gross motor skill practice but this time for their legs by leading a bunny hop around the perimeter of the tarp!!!!

Oh what fun learning and acting like rabbits!  Be creative and resourceful. Look at household items differently and see how they can be used to help your little ones build physically and cognitively.

Teaching and learning in the USA heartland,
Becca S

BS Secondary w/ Home Economics proficiency
M. Ed. Elementary w/ ECE emphasis
IL endorsements: FACS grades 6-12, Birth to Grade 3/ECE
IL approval: General science grades 5-8

ECE Food Crafting Experiences for preschool children to enjoy

Snakes?

Cars?

Spooky houses?

Sure! Sounds fun! 

What about to eat? huh? oh, no!!!!

Have a conversation with your group about frosting, candy, plastic knives, etc. are your tools for the activity and they are not to lick their fingers or knives while assembling your food creation. As one who did food experiences exactly like these with 3s, 4s, and 5s and also as a certified grades 6-12 FACS/home economics teacher with 9 years experience teaching culinary arts, please make sure to find ways to involve each child and have all supplies available and near the work area before beginning. Those little ones will be bouncing up and down in their chairs!!! They will be so excited!

These photos are not from my experiences with preschool but have been gleaned from the internet and look more professionally done than what finished food crafting with little ones will look like. Don't fret, however. In their eyes, they've helped create a masterpiece and they will also just as quickly will want to eat and destroy it. 

That's half the fun, I think. The other half is the playful learning and building of skills that will be occurring. Fine motor skills will be strengthened when using plastic knives to frost or cut and when placing candy or cookie particles in different places. Safety concepts and skills will be reinforced when setting up and proceeding through the food crafting experience. Make sure to state real world science safety and observation skills connections while children are working. While eating, take time to question the children about sizes of different food pieces that were used for more math skills besides any measuring or counting while assembling.

Isn't this snake almost too cute to eat?!?!?! My four-year-olds did a snake or caterpillar looking creation using Twinkies for sections with green-tinted vanilla frosting to cover the outsides of each Twinkie. So each child got to unwrap one, frost it, and place it on the display tray.

Way back when working with three-year-olds for a pre-Father's Day activity, we crafted a car using a purchased pound cake for our base with a little bit of carving out, a blue-frosted graham cracker became the front windshield, and we also had chocolate-covered mini doughnuts for tires. Our car's exterior was red-tinted frosting. And I think we had black string licorice pieces to resemble wipers for our front windshield!

This is a yummy chocolate-y haunted house! Working with a group of 3 1/2 year olds, our spooky dilapidated house was made with a purchased pound cake, Swiss Cake Rolls or Ho-Hos for corner type rounded towers, crumbled Shredded Wheat cereal for dried grass, malted milk balls served as decorative stone pieces to top the corner towers, and a chocolate frosted sugar wafer cookies for the front door.

Remember with this type of food crafting of desserts, frosting is the "glue" to hold all your bits and pieces together...well, at least long enough hopefully to snap a picture and hear the oohs and ahs from the children!!!

Another tip is don't be a perfectionist when food crafting with early childhood learners. This is a playful learning opportunity for them to build fine motor, math, and science skills.