Bugs, bugs, bugs! Summer 1 2024
Bugs, bugs, bugs!
Summer 1
2024
Science, English and Geography
Thinking and Creativity
(Art and DT)
RATIONALE:
The insects in the school grounds are unhappy and feel neglected so the children will set to work to find out more about the creatures that could live around our school. They will use scientific skills to investigate and research a range of a micro habitats, the insects which live there, life cycles and food chains. The children will use their reading skills to explore variety of texts, in order to write instructions for bee keeping, humorous bug related stories and detailed non chronological reports on a range of minibeasts. They will watch animals in the classroom such as worms and the development of caterpillars to butterflies. Finally realising that they need to upgrade and revamp the “Bug Hotel”, design and make more places for the minibeasts in the school grounds and provide more interesting and suitable places for the insects to live.
HOOK:
The classroom has been invaded by minibeasts, they are not happy with the school grounds. They have been forgotten! The beautiful Bug Hotel has been neglected. There is a note from the bugs explaining their situation and asking if we really know anything about the creatures that would like to live to our school grounds. What are we going to do about it?
Being scientist means careful observation and using equipment. We used magnifying glasses to look at the detail of a range of insects and label the main body parts.
After looking so closely at the insects we made our own using pipe cleaners and other crafts materials. We thought about how to bend, shape and join the different materials we chose to create our minibeasts.
Using our artistic skills to make clay minibeasts, remembering the skills we learnt in "We're all going to the Zoo" to roll, squeeze, pinch, join and shape the clay.
The arrival of the caterpillars! We are watching the caterpillars carefully to see what they do next. They have to stay in the container until they have made a chrysalis, then we move them gently to the large net and wait to see what happens next!
After looking at microhabitats in our school grounds we decided to look in detail at how worms live in their microhabitat - in the soil. First we spent time findings worms and then gathering the resources we needed. As scientist we need to use the equipment safely and make careful observations of the worms once they are in their wormery.
Time paint our clay minibeasts - the clay has air dried and now we can decorate them!
Exploring microhabitats at Queen's Road playing field! We used our scientific skills again to observe closely, gather information to answer questions and identify the minibeasts we found. We also used our Geographical skills to look at the route we took to the field and the human features of our local area that we passed on the way. We looked at the road names too!
Our scientific enquiry lead us further afield today as we explored the beautiful grounds of Polesden Lacey to look at different microhabitats. We used our geographical skills to follow the route on the map and find the locations for each activity. We found lots of different microhabitats and it was interesting to compare them to our finds at school and in the park. We had a lovely day in the sunshine! Thank you to the adults who came to help make our trip possible!
A truly amazing event happened in Emerald Class today! We were privileged to capture the moment when one of our butterflies hatched from their chrysalis. This was an incredible awe and wonder moment! Wow, wow, wow!
Today we said farewell to two of our butterflies that were ready to be released. We have loved learning about their lifecycle and following it actually happening in real time in our classroom! We feel very lucky to be able to experience this. We also showed our value of Spirituality in action as we asked big questions, enjoyed the awe and wonder and wished our butterflies a safe journey as they flew off over the school. One butterfly took a liking to our classmate’s hand, what a special moment!
Want to find out more?
BBC bitesize have lots of minibeast information - click this link to find out more.
Listen to the story of Susie's caterpillar!
Share the information pack then see if you can name the minibeasts! Or use the spotting checklist when you are out on a walk or in the garden. Can you spot any of these minibeasts?
Minibeast information video
