Insects and Bugs - PreK Theme

I love all things creepy crawly (well almost all things), so I always enjoy when we do an insect/bug theme. We took a week to explore a variety of bugs and insects and to do fun activities surrounding this theme. We watched videos, colored pictures, made crafts, had a couple of themed snacks, and learned about the letters these critters begin with, along with their sounds and how to form them. So here are some of our activities from this week.


VIDEOS

We watched a different video each morning. These are very short little videos, ten minutes or less in length, but they add a little fun to our morning lessons.

CRAFTS/COLORING PAGES

This ant coloring page came from DLTK kids and I just added the letter A to glue onto the page.

I loved this ant path writing skills page and K enjoyed it as well. 

We made a cool caterpillar out of ten circles. This gave us practice counting to 10 as well as reviewing the circle shape. 

I think this butterfly life cycle craft was a favorite for both K and I. He was SO fascinated by the caterpillar's transformation into a butterfly.

Butterfly coloring page

And how about this nifty little TP roll honey bee!

This great big cardboard spider was the very best craft of the week. K played with it so much and we used lots of tape reattaching his legs but it was so worth it. 

And this coloring page of a spider with it's web was also a big hit. I think spiders are K's favorite critters. 

SNACKS

Cucumber caterpillars with a side of Ranch dressing are surprisingly delicious! Raisins for eyes and carrot pieces for legs finished out this mostly healthy snack.

And what insect unit would be complete without ants on a log for snack. 

LETTER MATCH

These simple letter matching mats give us the chance to work on letter recognition, their sounds, colors, and matching. I put the big sheet of colored letters in a sheet protector and use colored cardboard letters to match. 

PLAYDOUGH LETTERS

Another way we enjoy working on our letter skills is with these playdough letter mats. Once again I placed the paper with the letter shapes in a clear sheet protector. These mats offer the option of using little round dots to make the letters as well as rolling out longer pieces of playdough to form letters. This allows a lot of fine motor skill work as well as providing a sensory experience while learning letter recognition and sounds. 

And that is brief overview of our creepy crawly week.