Insect theme

Developmental areas:

• Cognitive – In creating their bug, the children used mathematical thinking as they selected materials, making decisions regarding length, color, and design. The children used descriptive words related to length, shape, and motion.
• Social-emotional – The children gained insight on each others’ projects by talking and showing what they created.
• Fine motor – The children painted, cut out, glued, and assembled their bug, all examples of honing fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

Details

With this project, the children were asked to create a bug using mostly recycled materials. They chose what materials to use, painted their bugs, and had to decide how their bug was going to move: how it was going to move, whether it was going to crawl on the ground, fly in the air or both.

During this time, my assistant and I were able to enhance language development by using many descriptors such as length, shape, action words related to motion. The children gave their bugs a name, and also wrote a short story about their bug which had a beginning, a middle, and an end.

After this was completed, they were displayed. The teachers read the stories to all the children and they were able to share in each others’ creations.