BUGGING OUT IN PRESCHOOL
In preschool at St. Peter, the kids spend time learning about God’s creation all around us. That includes things that might make us a bit squeamish, like bugs and spiders. The classes recently completed a two-week unit on bugs to learn just how beneficial they can be!
Mrs. Samaan’s flex class got up close and personal with bugs, investigating different types up close with magnifying glasses! Then they made a bug habitat using rocks, wood circles, and blocks. During the two weeks, the kids decorated a bug jar using glow-in-the-dark stickers and made their own bugs out of pipe cleaners and mini pompoms to put inside the jar. This activity was a great way to use their growing fine motor skills! The kids loved creating bugs using various construction paper shapes – especially while wearing their ladybug hats! Mrs. Samaan provided so many fun activities to engage the kids while learning about the bugs that live all around us.
Mrs. Grissom’s half-day classes zeroed in on spiders and spent some time learning about how spiders and insects are different. Did you know that insects have three body parts and spiders only have two? As they learned about all things spiders, the kids discovered there is nothing to be scared of and how much spiders are needed! In addition to spider exploration stations throughout the classroom, there were lots of spider art projects. One project allowed the kids to “spin webs” of their own using a salad spinner and paint! They learned about the different kinds of webs that spiders create, particularly orb webs. The kids made their own orb webs using melted chocolate and pretzel sticks. Yum! They gobbled up that special treat! By the end of the unit, the classes voted on whether they were afraid of spiders. While not everyone had been convinced, most of the kids were not scared of them!
What a fun two weeks in preschool! Our teachers had as much fun creating “buggy” projects as the kids did participating in them, while learning a lot about the bugs and spiders that live around us. Did you know that one single spider eats 75 pounds of bugs each year? Without them, there would be way too many bugs! Isn’t God’s creation amazing?!
