Insects for kindergarten
Insects | TheSchoolRun
What are insects?
Insects are creatures that have bodies with three segments that are protected by a hard shell. They have three pairs of legs and a pair of antennae. Most insects have two pairs of wings, too. There are lots and lots of kinds of insects and they can all be very different from each other.
Lots of different insects can be found all around us, even just in your garden at home. There are some kinds of insects that gardeners dislike because they eat their plants and cause a nuisance, like aphids that eat plants and can damage them. There are also some kinds of insects that gardeners do like because they are very helpful – ladybirds eat the aphids that they find. And, other types of insects – like bees and moths – help with pollination of the plants so that they can create fruits to eat, and make seeds to grow more plants!
Top 10 facts
- All insects have bodies split into three segments, which are protected by a hard shell (called an exoskeleton).
- The segments of an insect’s body are called the head, the thorax and the abdomen.
- Most insects have two pairs of wings on their thorax. When they are not flying, they often hide them under hard shells to protect them.
- To grow, an insect has to ‘moult’ and shed its hard shell.
- There are about 1 million known species of insects. That’s more than half of all known species of living things on Earth!
- Insects are found in almost every type of habitat on Earth, from deserts to rainforests and the Arctic.
- Insects are very varied. Ants, beetles, earwigs, dragonflies, moths, butterflies and bees are all types of insect.
- Wasps and bees are covered in bright black and yellow stripes to warn predators that they have painful stings.
- Ants can lift objects up to 100 times their own body weight!
- Some insects, particularly bees, are known for being involved in the pollinating of plants. They carry the pollen from one flower to the next as they drink nectar from the flower.
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Did you know?
- Unlike people and other mammals, who have their bones inside all their muscles and skin (learn more about the skeleton and bones), insects have a hard shell around their body called an exoskeleton.
- Insects hatch from eggs. They normally have different body forms when they are young and when they are adults. The young insects are called larvae and they often look quite like caterpillars (the young form of butterflies and moths), or maggots (the young form of flies).
- Some insects have very different forms when they are young and when they are adults. Butterflies and moths start out their lives as caterpillars.
When they are ready to become adults, they wrap themselves in a chrysalis and change into their adult shape, wings and all! - Other insects, like earwigs, are very similar when they are young and when they are adults.
- Some insects are very strong. Ants can carry objects that weigh up to 100 times as much as they do (that’s like a man carrying a double-decker bus!). Fleas can jump up to 200 times their own height (if a person could jump that high, they would leap higher than the Shard, the tallest building in the United Kingdom!).
- Because the exoskeleton of an insect is very tough, the insect can’t grow because the exoskeleton is in the way – it’s not like us, where our bones grow inside our bodies. In order to grow, the insect has to shed its hard skin and then grow a new one. This process is called a moult, and it allows the insect to grow but means that predators can catch it more easily.
- Some insects live in big colonies, like ants, bees, termites and wasps.
There can be hundreds or thousands of them living in the same nest. Sometimes there can even be millions of termites in a single colony. - Not all bees and wasps live in colonies – in some species, each individual lives on its own, like the masonry bee, which often lives in little holes in walls. Bees that live on their own are called solitary bees, and wasps that do this are solitary wasps.
- Lots of kinds of insects are involved in pollinating the flowers of plants so that they can make seeds. Without insects, lots of plants wouldn’t be able to breed and create the seeds that grow into the next generation. Learn more about plants and growth.
Insect gallery:
- This brightly coloured Sexton beetle is common in the UK
- Worker bees filling a honeycomb with honey. When each cell is full they cover it with wax
- Beekeepers have special houses for their bees called beehives that are full of honeycombs
- A queen bee laying eggs in the hive
- An adult dragonfly
- A dragonfly nymph
- A queen ant and some worker ants – see how much bigger the queen is!
- Black ants
- The stag beetle is the largest beetle found in Britain, but it is now becoming rare.
Look how big its jaws are! - A ladybird
Gallery
About
Some types of insect, like bees and ants, live in colonies and there can be hundreds or thousands of them in one colony. Each individual insect in the colony has a particular role to play. There will be one queen, who lays all the eggs; lots of soldiers to protect the colony; and lots of workers to gather food and take care of the eggs and the young.
Some people keep bees in hives so that they can collect the honey the bees produce from nectar they get from flowers. Honey tastes good and the bees help to pollinate all the plants in the area around the hive, but the people who keep the bees have to be very careful. Just one bee sting is painful, but the stings of hundreds of bees could be enough to kill a person. Beekeepers wear special clothes and a big hat with netting around it to keep the bees off their skin.
Bees and wasps warn predators that they have painful stings with their bright black and yellow stripes.
Predators know that they won’t be nice to eat, so they leave them alone. Some kinds of insects that don’t have stings – like wasp beetles and hoverflies – have black and yellow stripes too, so that predators are tricked into thinking they have stings and also leave them alone, just to be on the safe side.
Adult dragonflies and their young both live close to streams and ponds, but they look very different and live completely different lifestyles. The adult dragonflies spend most of their time flying around the water, or they land on nearby plants. They are often very pretty with long, thin bodies, large eyes and four big wings. The young dragonflies (called nymphs) actually live underwater – they look a bit like their parents but without wings. Both nymphs and adults are predators and eat other types of insects.
Ladybirds are a type of beetle. You normally see ladybirds walking around on plants (they eat a type of insect called aphids, which eat the plants) but like most insects, they have wings hidden under their hard shells.
This protects the wings and stops them from getting damaged. Even though they are small, ladybirds are actually very good fliers – they are known to fly across the English Channel to France and the Netherlands!
Some insects have very short lifecycles – winged male ants only live for a few weeks, just long enough to grow large enough to fly and reproduce. Other insects can have quite long life cycles – dragonflies can often spend three or four years as nymphs, living underwater, and then spend only about one or two months as adults before they mate and lay their eggs. Once dragonflies have laid their eggs, they die soon after.
Words to know:
Abdomen – the back section of an insect’s body; it contains the digestive and reproductive systems
Antennae – insects have two antennae on their head between their eyes, used for smelling and for many other senses
Caterpillar – the larvae of a moth or butterfly; caterpillars have lots of legs and wrap themselves in a chrysalis to turn into an adult moth or butterfly
Chrysalis – a protective form that caterpillars take while they turn into adult butterflies and moths
Colony – a place where large numbers of a single species of insect live and work together
Exoskeleton – a hard skin that protects the muscles and bones of an insect
Head – the front segment of an insect’s body, containing the eyes and mouth
Grubs – the larvae of bees, wasps and beetles
Larvae – the young form of insects; they can be very different shapes to the adults of the same species, and often there are special names for the larvae of different kinds of insect
Maggot – the larvae of species of fly; maggots often look like short, stubby worms, and often eat dead plants and animals
Moult – the process where an insect sheds its hard exoskeleton so that it can grow
Metamorphosis – the changing process that some species go through, like butterflies when they change from the young caterpillar stage to the adult stage
Nymph – the name given to larvae of several kinds of insects like dragonflies, damselflies, mayflies and grasshoppers; nymphs often look similar to the adults of their species, and gradually change into them each time they moult instead of going through metamorphosis
Pupae – a stage of the insect lifecycle when they go through metamorphosis from larvae into adults; the chrysalis is the pupae of butterflies and moths
Queen – each colony of a social insect has one queen; the queen is much bigger than all the other members of the colony, and her job is just to lay eggs.
She will lay hundreds and thousands of them; all the other members of the colony will be her children.
Social insect – a species of insect that lives in a big group in a nest, like ants and termites or some species of bees and wasps
Soldiers – members of an insect colony that are specially developed as fighters to defend the colony
Solitary insect – a species of insect that lives on its own; some species of bees and wasps do this
Thorax – the middle section of an insect’s body; the head, legs, wings and abdomen are attached to the thorax
Wing case – a hard case that covers the wings of an insect to protect them when the insect isn’t flying
Worker – members of an insect colony that do all the work; collecting food, looking after the young and repairing the colony.
Related Videos
Just for fun...
- Find bee-themed colouring, recipes and craft projects on the Bumblebee Conservation Trust website.
- Take a creepy crawlies quiz
- Try this bug and insect word search.
- Build your own bee hotel and help support bee populations.
- Go pond-dipping
- Read the comic-book adventures of Carly the entomologist.
- Use a Bee Spotter's Guide to identify the bees you see or try a bee-themed quiz
- Learn more about bees and their role in the environment by designing a garden for them to pollinate in BeePopulate, a game for mobile devices
- Show off your insect knowledge with a tricky quiz
- Make your own bug and bee hotel and turn your garden into a bee haven
- Try some tricky online Insect Power Puzzles
- Make your own paper models of 18 different kinds of insects
- Download Grow a secret garden for butterflies, a free booklet produced by the Wildlife Trusts and RHS and packed with advice and tips designed to make our outdoor spaces more attractive to butterflies, moths and their caterpillars
Children's books about insects
Find out more about insects:
- Watch a BBC guide to insects
- Read more about dragonflies.
- Read all about lots of interesting insects (and other kinds of minibeasts) that live in the UK.
- Explore the incredible lives of insects on the Amateur Entomologists' Society website.
- There are 25 types of insect. Use this guide to identify them all, or find out about different kinds of bugs.
- Read a child's beekeeping diary
- Join The Bug Club, the association for young entomologists
See for yourself
- See the insect house at London Zoo.
- Look inside a beehive.
- Visit the Creepy Crawlies gallery at the Natural History Museum in London
- BBC video clips about insects
- Listen to recordings of insect sounds
Also see
Fun Insects Facts for Kids
Did you know we share our planet with over 1 million species of insects? That’s a lot of bugs! Scientists are discovering more insects every day. Insects are also called arthropods. Some have wings, and some don’t. But all have a few things in common.
All insects go through the same life cycle. Life begins as an egg. An adult insect emerges from the pupa.
- Insects don’t have bones or a backbone like us. They’re called invertebrates. That means they have a hard exoskeleton, or shell, on the outside of their bodies that protects them.
- All insects have three parts: the head, the thorax, which is the middle part, and the abdomen, or end part.
- Insects have two antennae. They also have six legs.
- Spiders are not insects. Spiders have eight legs. They are related to scorpions and belong to the arachnid family.
- All insects hatch from eggs. The babies are called larva.
- All insects go through the same life cycle. Life begins as an egg. The egg hatches and larva emerge. Larvae usually look nothing like the adult insect. The larvae enter a pupa, chrysalis or cocoon. An adult insect emerges from the pupa.
Insect Vocabulary- Scientist: someone who studies science
- Arthropods: insects
- Invertebrate: an animal without a backbone
- Exoskeleton: a hard shell on the outside of the body
- Antennae: hair-like appendages
Check out this awesome video about how insects in the animal kingdom interconnect:
A video documentary all about insects and their lives.
Insect Q&AQuestion: How many insects live on the planet?
Answer: Insects make up over 90 percent of the animal life living on earth.
———————————–
Question: What’s an Anthropod?
Answer: Actually there’s no Anthropod insect. Anthropoids are actually something that is similar to the shape of a man, like a chimp.
Some various extinct kangaroo species were called Anthropoids, as are also some non-living things such as machines or artworks.
———————————–
Question: What is an Arthropod?
Answer: Arthropods are invertebrate animals with segmented bodies, jointed limbs (legs) and cuticles. Spiders, insects, crabs and so forth are all arthropods. Their rigid cuticle inhibits growth, so arthropods replace it periodically by moulting.
———————————–
Question: How large is an Arthropod?
Answer: Arthropods range in size – from microscopic plankton up to a few meters long.
———————————–
Question: How many insects are Arthropoids?
Answer: Actually, all insects arthropods but not all arthropods are insects…
———————————–
Question: Are insects helpful?
Answer: Some insects, such as bees, help humans by pollinating crops.
Others, like mosquitoes or fruit flies, can carry disease or damage crops.
Enjoyed the Easy Science for Kids Website all about Insects info? Take the FREE & fun all about Insects quiz and download FREE all about Insects worksheet for kids. For lengthy info click here.
Lexical theme "Insects" - Website of kindergarten No. 422 "Lorik"
Site of kindergarten №422 "Lorik"
Parents are advised:
- consider insects (bee, ant, grasshopper, dragonfly, butterfly, ladybug, fly, mosquito, spider),
- discuss their appearance, identify body parts: head, wings, abdomen, antennae, legs,
- to tell the child what benefits (harm) insects bring, to teach the child to respect nature.
On the topic, children should know:
- the names of insects (bee, wasp, bumblebee, fly, snail, dragonfly, grasshopper, worm, ladybug, etc.), insect body parts (stinger, wings, proboscis , abdomen, paws…),
- what are the benefits and harms of insects,
- what insects eat (nectar, other insects, human food residues)
Introduction to the topic:
Introduction to insects in the presentation:
https://cloud.
mail.ru/public/3PJV/2eeFYrpMX
Watching insects in a beautiful video:
https://cloud.mail.ru/public/2H54/5CNYv2QQE
Speech development tasks:
- Pick a word. Selection of verbs for the word insects: What do insects do? fly, flutter, crawl, jump, suck, bite, sting, collect, drink, buzz, ring, buzz, annoy, harm, help, fly over, hide, fall asleep, wake up, get out, work, endure.
- “Call it sweetly”: spider - spider, mosquito - ..., cockroach - ..., bee - ..., fly - ..., beetle - ..., dragonfly - ...
- "Change the word": yellow butterfly - yellowish, white butterfly - white.
Change like this: black ant, gray mosquito, red ladybug, blue beetle, green grasshopper, striped wasp.
- “Whose paws, whose head?”
The ant has ant legs, an ant head.
The bee has ……… paws, …….. head.
A mosquito has …….. paws, ……… a head.
A cockroach has …… paws, …….. head.
The spider has ………… paws, ……. head.
- "Giant insects": in the use of words with magnifying connotations. Spider - spider, beetle - bug, ant - ..., mosquito - ..., worm - ..., bumblebee - ..., bug - ...., cockroach - .....
- “Who moves how?” Composing complex sentences with the meaning of opposition. The child not only selects the right word, but also repeats the entire sentence.
The ant crawls, but the butterfly ...
The caterpillar crawls, and the grasshopper ...
The butterfly flies, and the snail ...
The beetle crawls, and the dragonfly ...
The wasp flies, and the worm ...
The snail crawls, and the dragonfly ...
the bee crawls
The wasp flies, and the worm .
..
A grasshopper is jumping, and a mosquito ...
A cockroach is crawling, and a dragonfly ...
A butterfly is fluttering, and a fly ...
- Retell the story "Centipede" according to the reference pictures:
Once upon a time there was a centipede. She came to visit. She looked out the window. And it's raining outside. The centipede began to wear rubber boots. While shod forty legs, the sun shone. The centipede began to take off her boots. By the time I took everything off, it was snowing. The centipede decided to put on boots. While shod forty legs, the winter was over. Since then, the centipede has been walking barefoot.
- The game "it happens - it doesn't happen": understanding of logical and grammatical constructions.
A girl is catching a butterfly. The girl is caught by a butterfly. Butterfly caught by a girl. Butterfly catches a girl.
The girl caught a butterfly. Butterfly caught a girl, etc.
- Complete the sentences:
Maxim holds a spider in his palm, although…… (although he is afraid of them, although it is a dangerous spider, etc.)
Katya saw a butterfly on the street, although….. (although it was still early spring, late autumn)
Butterfly flew away, though…..
- Count insects (nouns agree with numerals): one fly, two flies… five flies.
- Solve the crossword puzzle
- Who flies to whom game
Summary for kindergarten (middle group)
Summary of joint activities with children of the middle group on social and communicative development "Insects"
using health-saving pedagogical technologies, technology of student-centered interaction between the teacher and children, technology of research activities, information and communication technologies, technology of project activities.
St. Petersburg, 2014
Author: Olga Alexandrovna Devyaterikova and Olga Petrovna Tsypysheva, educators of the first qualification category, MADOU CRR Kindergarten No. 6, Perm Territory, the city of Gubakha.
Purpose: consolidation of acquired knowledge about insects.
Tasks:
Educational:
To expand and consolidate children's knowledge of insects, to introduce a generalizing concept of "insects" into the children's active dictionary. Continue to practice making sentences of different constructions using the union because - because. Continue to learn to compose a short story based on a series of paintings.
Educational:
Cultivate a good attitude towards small neighbors on the planet.
Developing:
- Develop visual and auditory memory.
- Activate, enrich the vocabulary of children on the topic.
- Develop coherent speech.
- Develop figurativeness of speech.
- To develop children's verbal and logical thinking, the ability to establish cause-and-effect relationships, reason, draw conclusions, exclude the fourth extra item with the rationale for their answer.
- Continue to learn how to solve riddles and justify your answer.
- Develop general motor skills, coordination.
- Continue to teach to group objects according to the main features.
Equipment: subject pictures of insects (butterfly, bee, grasshopper, ant, caterpillar, ladybug, dragonfly). Flower, the didactic game "Spread into groups", the didactic game "The fourth extra", D / and "What first, what then" (plot pictures that show the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly). A soft toy is a caterpillar, a table covered with a green cloth on which flowers, a letter, insect toys are located - a bee, a ladybug, a dragonfly, an ant, a beetle, a fly.
To help the teacher: visual and didactic aids on the topic "Insects" can be purchased at the specialized store of educational toys "Kindergarten" - detsad-shop.ru
Walking classes
Cross steps"
Educator:
- Today we will go to visit the little inhabitants of the forest clearing - insects. Let's get ready for the trip:
“We went out to the forest clearing, raising our legs higher,
Through bushes and tussocks, through stump branches.
Who walked so dexterously, did not stumble, did not fall?
Organizational moment
Children approach the table covered with a green tablecloth.
Educator:
- Look, there is no one in the clearing, I do not see a single insect. Only the letter lies, I wonder from whom it is? He reads the letter: “Dear guys, we are in trouble, an evil spider has bewitched us, help us, please!”
Educator:
– Guys, something happened to the six-legged kids, are you ready to help?
Once upon insects
An evil swept about the rd spider
In a colorful meadow
he enchanted everyone.
To make butterflies flutter,
An ant worked.
And the wasps to buzz,
Help me soon.
Take knowledge with you,
And take kindness,
And these six-legged
Help the little ones!
Educator:
— And to help our six-legged kids, you and I will also turn into insects. I have a magical flower that will help us. Close your eyes and repeat after me:
- Help us, flower, turn us into insects! Here we have turned into insects and we will fly to a forest clearing. Pass insects, sit down. And here is the first task from the spider: “You need to solve riddles and find pictures - clues and put it on the flannelgraph.”
1. It has four wings,
The body is thin, like an arrow.
And big, big eyes,
They call her ... (dragonfly).
Educator:
- How did you guess that it was a dragonfly, what words helped you find the answer?
2.
Drinks the juice of fragrant flowers,
Gives us both wax and honey.
She is nice to all people
And her name is ... (bee).
Educator:
- What words helped you guess that this is a bee?
3. He is a real worker
Very, very hardworking.
Under a pine tree in a dense forest
He builds a house out of needles. (ant).
Educator:
- What words helped you guess that this is an ant?
3. She is bright, beautiful,
Graceful, light-winged.
She looks like a flower
And likes to drink flower juice. (butterfly)
Educator:
- What words told you that this is a butterfly?
4. She is sweeter than all the bugs,
The back is scarlet on her.
And there are circles on it
Little black dots. ( Ladybug).
Educator:
- And in this riddle, what words suggested that it was a ladybug?
- How can one name those who are depicted in the pictures?
— What is the main feature of all insects? (All insects have 6 legs.
)
— Is a spider an insect?
— Name insects that are predatory (dragonfly, grasshopper, ladybug)
— Why are they called predators? (Because they prey on other insects.)
- Name useful insects. (butterfly, bee, ant.)
— What benefits do bees, butterflies, ants bring? (Bees pollinate flowers, give us honey and wax. Ants carry the seeds of many plants through the forest. Butterflies pollinate flowers.)
- Name the harmful insects. (The fly carries microbes, the caterpillar eats the leaves of plants, the mosquito.)
- Well done, all the riddles were solved, and we saved the dragonfly and the bee, but other insects are waiting for our help, let's move on.
Fizminutka "Centipede"
A centipede was walking (children walk in a rhythmic step, slightly springy)
Along a dry path. Suddenly it started to rain: Drip-drip-drip! (Children stop and squat.)
— Oh, forty paws will get wet! I don’t need a runny nose (children walk, raising their knees high, as if walking through puddles), I will go around the puddles! I will not bring dirt into the house
(children stop, shake one leg), I will shake each paw! (shake other leg).
And then I will stomp (children stomp their feet).
— Oh, what a thunder from paws!
Educator:
- Let's go further, there are other insects waiting for our help.
Children sit near the flannelograph. There are pictures on the flannelgraph.
Game "4 extra". Making sentences with the union "because".
Educator:
- Look carefully at the pictures and say which picture is superfluous here and why do you think so?
Extra spider because it is not an insect.
An extra ant, because it does not fly, but the rest of the insects do.
An extra butterfly because it flies and other insects don't.
An extra butterfly, because the rest of the insects are predatory.
Educator:
- Here you and I saved an ant (an ant appears). Let's continue our journey.
Game “Put the butterflies into groups” (on the carpet).
Educator:
— Look how beautiful butterflies have come to us.
I propose to sort them into groups.
Educator:
- On what basis did you arrange the butterflies? The child explains:
- I arranged the butterflies according to their shape.
Educator:
- And now Sonya will put the butterflies into groups, but in a different way. Diana, on what basis did you arrange the butterflies? Child:
- I sorted the butterflies by color. Educator:
- And what other sign can be used to decompose butterflies? Children's answers:
- By size.
Educator:
- Nastya, spread out the butterflies by size. Educator:
- So we freed the grasshopper and the beetle. What good fellows you are! (A grasshopper and a beetle appear.) Educator:
- Let's continue the journey. (Children sit on chairs)
Didactic game "What first, what then."
Caterpillar appears, grumbles, very unhappy:
- Everything about butterflies, but about butterflies, but they forgot about me.
Educator:
- No, they didn't forget the caterpillar. We will help you turn into a butterfly. Guys, let's help the caterpillar turn into a butterfly. The teacher conducts a conversation:
- What does the butterfly lay first? Children's answers:
- A butterfly lays eggs. Educator:
- Who emerges from the egg? Children's answers:
- A caterpillar appears from the egg. Educator:
- What is the caterpillar doing? Children's answers:
- She eats leaves and grows. Educator:
- Who does she turn into? Children's answers:
- The caterpillar turns into a chrysalis. Educator:
- Who comes out of the chrysalis? Children's answers:
- A butterfly appears from the chrysalis, its wings are wet. The butterfly dries its wings in the sun, as soon as the wings dry, the butterfly begins to fly. Educator:
- I suggest you tell how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, first in a poem with movement, and then in pictures.
Physical education minute - coordination of speech with the "Caterpillar" movement.
This strange house without windows (slowly turn around)
People call it "cocoon".
Twisting this house on a branch, (rotate hands)
A caterpillar slumbers in it. (palms under the right cheek)
Sleeps without waking up all winter. (palms under the left cheek)
But winter is passing by - (wave hands up)
March, April, drops, spring ... (clapping hands for every word)
Wake up, sleepyhead! (stretching)
Under the bright spring sun (drawing the sun with their hands)
The caterpillar is not up to sleep. (threaten with a finger)
She has become a butterfly! (running in a circle, waving their arms like wings)
Children's stories in a chain:
A butterfly has laid eggs on a flower.
Then came the caterpillar.
The caterpillar fed on leaves and grew.
Then the caterpillar turned into a chrysalis.
A butterfly emerges from the chrysalis. She has wet wings. The butterfly dries its wings in the sun. As soon as the wings dry, the butterfly begins to fly.
Summary of the lesson
Educator: So our journey has come to an end, what a great fellow you are for helping the insects. The insects thank you all. Take insects and settle them in our forest clearing.
(Children take insect toys and place them in the clearing near the flowers.)
Look how beautiful the clearing has become. Let ants and beetles crawl on the ground, let grasshoppers jump on the grass, let butterflies and dragonflies fly, and let the world we live in always remain blue and green! And it's time for us to go back to kindergarten. But first we need to turn into children again.
Close your eyes and repeat after me:
— You are a flower, help us turn into children!
- Did you enjoy being insects?
— And if you had such an opportunity to turn into insects again, who would you like to turn into and why?
- Which game did you like the most?
— You were all great today!
Relaxation.
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