Bug Crafts, Activities, and Learning Fun!
We have been busy with bug crafts and activities lately. My 3 year old loves doing bug-related things!
My little guy made this giant Egg Carton Bug in his Before I am 4 class. The kids painted it during one class and then the next class they decorated it with pipe cleaners and wiggly eyes. I am guessing that the 2 teachers pre-punches holes for the legs and antennas. They also bent the pipe cleaners on the inside and glued (or taped) them to help hold them in place.
He received a butterfly net (Walgreen’s) and bug holder (Dollar Tree) in his Easter basket that he absolutely loved. I wanted him to have bugs to play with, so I decided to buy him a BUSY BUGS Learning Set from a friend who is a Discovery Toys consultant. It comes with 36 bugs and learning cards in English, Spanish, and French. There are things like color matching, patterning, and simple math. He asks to play with them almost everyday!
He had so much fun going on a Bug Hunt! I hid the bugs around our home and he caught (collected) them in his butterfly net. Then he counted and placed them one by one in his bug holder.
He only counted 35 bugs instead of 36. To figure out what color bug was missing, I brought out these printable Bug Sorting Cards I found through a post over at Teach Preschool. There are colored bug jars to sort by color and then another set with a little drawing of each of the 6 different kinds of bugs to sort by type. We were able to figure out that he was missing a purple dragonfly. The bug sorting cards are his new favorite thing to do- he would play with them all day if I let him!!!
I found some Watercolor books at Dollar Tree – each page has a paint palette on it. All you need is water and a paintbrush (or they use a q-tip in the picture). We actually took the 2 books I bought on our vacation and my son was able to paint in our hotel room with very little mess to clean up afterwards.
He couldn’t resist catching himself too….tee, hee!
More bug crafts and activities:
- Bee craft
- The Orkin Ecologist and more crafts here
- Egg carton love bugs
- Footprint Ladybug and Bumblebee
SOOOO FUN! I will definitely have to check out that busy bee learning set for my 4 yr old. Thanks for sharing these wonderful ideas!
Great ideas- my son loves bugs! Thank you for stopping by and linking up to Classified Mom!
Wow! I love all of your activities! Thanks so much for sharing. I'll have to look into Discovery Toys. And I love the Dollar Tree, you can really find some awesome stuff there. Do you have a Michaels nearby? I often sing the praises of Michaels as well. I found your blog on the play linky. My son loves bugs as well, and I linked up a post about catching lightening bugs. Its nothing crafty,
Creative and great ways to make learning fun! Love it!
So many fun activities! I have to look into getting those bugs. Stopping by from the Playtime linky.
Love the picture of my cute grandson trying to catch himself!