Week 4: Insects

Insects. Are. Incredible!

They fly, they’re brightly colored, they make amazing sounds. Yes, that is the exact same thing we wrote for birds, but it’s all true of insects too!

The lesson outlines for each day are below. On Monday, be sure to tune into the Facebook Live Video, but all of the other activities are optional. Try them all, try just some, it’s up to you!

HERE’S THE PDF DOWNLOAD FOR ALL OF THE LESSON DETAILS OF THIS WEEK.

Need extra ideas to keep kiddo busy? We’ve got you covered. Check out our Safer and Funner pages for more.

Monday

investigating interesting insects

1. Facebook Live Video: Carolyn kicks off camp with a video introducing insects. Watch it live on our Facebook page at 1pm (the feed will start automatically). After the live lesson we’ll post the link here so you can watch it later.

2. Scavenger hunt: This scavenger hunt happens in one small place. Make a circle in your yard or local park with rope, two beach towels, or hula hoop. Get down close to the ground and look for insects within your circle. Part the grass, look at the soil, watch for bugs flying in. What do you see? Watch and explore insects in the circle for 5 minutes. Use your magnifying glass or backwards binoculars if you have one!

3. Nature journaling prompt: Draw an insect that you found today. Make your drawing more detailed or write notes about the insect. Think like a scientist as you write and draw.

4. Art/Creative: Make an insect! Insects are known by their three body parts (head, abdomen, thorax) and six legs. They also have an exoskeleton (hard exterior) and compound eyes (thousands of light-sensing elements that each make up one piece of the image). Many insects have two antennae and two pairs of wings. Use our printable insect template or make an insect of your own! Download the template here.

5. Sit spot: Return to your sit spot. Listen for the birds you learned, look for mammals, think about herps, BUT focus on insects. What do you see or hear? What insects have you seen there in the past but don’t see today? 

Tuesday

Butterflies are the best

1. Butterflies are the best! Check out this cool resource to help you identify the butterflies you find: Wisconsin Butterflies.

2. Watch this video about Butterfly metamorphosis: Caterpillars to Butterflies (about 4 minutes).

3. Scavenger hunt: Find the Milkweed. Go on a walk through your neighborhood or a natural area and look for milkweed plants. You can find out how to identify milkweed plants at the Save Our Monarchs website.  

4. Nature journaling prompt: Butterflies and amphibians both go through metamorphosis. Think about how amphibians metamorphos. What is the same about amphibians and butterflies? What is different? Write or draw about it. 

5. Dissect a Flower: Find a flower. Try to find one that has already fallen on the ground or that is from your home (ask an adult first before you pick it). Please do not pick flowers from other people's yards. Using this flower diagram, carefully dissect the flower to find all of its parts. What color pollen does it have? Do you see where it hides its nectar? Draw a diagram of your flower in your nature journal. If you find different kinds of flowers to dissect, what is similar or different about your various blooms?

6. Art: Butterflies have symmetrical patterns on their wings, meaning both sides look the same. You can make your own butterfly wings like this with paint and a piece of paper. First, draw a butterfly on your paper. Make it big to fill up the whole sheet. Next, fold the paper along the midline of the butterfly’s body. Then add some paint to one wing of the butterfly. Before the paint dries, fold the paper and press the two sides together. Unfold the paper again, and lay it flat to dry.

7. Creative: Pretend the human body is our caterpillar state. What would your imaginary “butterfly state” look like? Draw or write about it.

8. Get Active: Nectar Races: You will need twice as many containers as there are people racing. Fill half of the containers with "nectar" (water, colored water, or whatever beverage you choose). Make a start line and a "finish" line. Place all of the full containers of nectar at the "finish" line. Each butterfly (participant) will need a straw. Butterflies have long mouthpieces called proboscises. A butterfly will use their proboscis to suck up nectar, fruit, water, and even tree sap. Since we don't have proboscises, you can use a straw! If you don't have straws, a spoon will also work for this activity! Each butterfly will be trying to get as much nectar from their flower (the full container) to their stomach (the empty container). They can only use the straw or spoon. You can set a time or race until someone has emptied their flower! Variations: make it a relay race, hide the cups on nectar, or make everyone wear wings!

Wednesday

Things that Sting

1. Scavenger hunt: look for yellow & black striped insects. Are they bees or wasps? Honey bees or bumble? Use your Bug Fun ID guide to help!

2. Safely Catch Flying Insects: You will need a small, clear container, with a lid that is easy to put on. Pollinators are often around flowers, even small clovers in grassy areas. Gently hold the container and lid on either side of an insect that you have spotted. Close the container. Be especially careful not to squish the insect. Hold the container carefully and move it slowly. Remember, you have a living animal inside of it! Try to identify what you have caught! To safely release, open the container near flowers or the ground. These insects will not sting you unless you are bothering/swatting at them, so stay calm and you should be good to go!

3.  Try to ID one of the bees you found! Here’s a great website for identifying Wisconsin bees: Bumblebees of Wisconsin.

4. Nature journaling prompt: Draw a map of a natural space (your sit spot, a park, or your yard). Draw a line to show where a bee might move through that space. Where would it fly? Where would it stop? Does it fly in a straight line or in some other way? 

5. Watch video: What’s a Waggle Dance, and Why do Honeybees Do It? (about 3 minutes long)

6. Active: Make Your Own Waggle Dance! Honey bees use the waggle dance as a way to share information about the direction and distance to certain flowers, water sources, or new nest sites. You can make up your own waggle dance! Yours could be scientific, and you could try to point towards real flowers. Or you could do something silly instead. If you have a partner, you can take turns copying each other's dance moves or building a dance together. Make a dance with three moves, and see if someone else can copy you. Make it more challenging by adding more moves. 

Thursday

All About Ants

1. Ant ID resource: There are SO many kinds of ants in Wisconsin. Seriously - there are 68! Take a look at them at the Ant Web webpage.

2. Scavenger hunt: Go on a walk around your neighborhood or explore the sidewalks in front of your home. Driveways and patios work well too. Try to find two different types of ants. Are they behaving the same way? What is the same and what is different about the way they look? Bonus: use the Ant ID resource to try to figure out what they are.

3. Learn about ants! Watch these videos:

   1. Tiny camera explores ant colony (older kids - about 3 minutes. This will need an adult watching with kids, and explaining what is happening, but it’s really cool!)

   2. What’s inside an anthill (all kids - about 3 minutes)

4. Nature journaling prompt: Many ants live underground. Write and/or draw how you think ants travel underground. What do their homes look like? What do they leave above ground? What else might you find living with them? 

5. Art/Creative: Imagine you were the size of an ant. What would the world like to you? Draw a picture or write a story as if you were an ant or a teeny tiny human.

6. Get active - Ant Mazes: Make yourself an outdoor or indoor obstacle course so you can pretend to be an ant too. If you're outside, a chalk obstacle course is always fun! Ants are able to climb around and under many things in their way. Adjust the difficulty level for your kid! 

7. Smell test: Anteaters can't see very well so they find ants to eat with their sense of smell! Test your sense of smell. Have someone place three (or more) different foods or liquids in three different containers. Don't peek! Then have them blindfold you. See if you can figure out what the mystery items are using only your sense of smell.

Friday

Fun with Flies

1. Video: Animals that see in slow motion (about 3 minutes).

2. Scavenger hunt: Look for flies. Can you find two different types? How are they the same or different? Where are they? What are they doing?

3. Nature journaling prompt: It’s our last day of camp! Think about everything we’ve done over the last four weeks. Flip through your journal if you need help remembering! What was your favorite part? What was the coolest thing you learned? Was there something that you never want to do again? Pick one of these things to write or draw about in your nature journal.

4. Art/creative: Flies have compound eyes (read about them here at Jake’s Nature Blog). Draw what you think the world looks like through compound eyes. THEN go look up what this looks like. Were you right? Does it look different? 

5. Build Compound Eyes: Take a toilet paper tube or a paper towel tube and cut it in half or fourths. You will also need straws or paper rolled and taped into the same size and size as straws. Cut the straws so that they are the same length as the paper tubes. You want to fill the whole inside of the tube with straws. Once you have bunched all your straws together, rubber band them in place. Then put them inside the tube. Look through all the straws! Do you think this is like having a compound eye?

6. Get active: Frogs sometimes eat flies - yikes! They can use their long sticky tongue to catch flies zooming by. Grab a family member, some sponges, a bowl of water, your swim suits, and head outside! The person with the bowl and the sponges is the frog. Pretend that the sponge is the frog’s tongue. The other person/people are the flies! Throw the sponge at the fly and pretend to catch it with your tongue. Take turns being frogs & flies, and stay cool outside.

7. Sit spot: Return to your sit spot one last time. Soak everything in. What do you hear? What do you see? What do you notice that you wouldn’t have noticed before camp started? Think about the person you were back at the start of camp. How are you the same? How are you different? Ps: we were just kidding about visiting your sit spot one last time. You can go back whenever you like! 

Mystery Insect Answers: #1: Monarch Butterfly caterpillar, #2: Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, #3: Red-belted Bumblebee, #4: an ant. We’re not sure of the species though! Do you have a guess? Email us at education@madisonaudubon.org!, #5: House Fly. How many did you get right?