A Creepy Crawly Lesson!

The crazy girl above holding a Madagascar hissing cockroach is me, Miss Sarah!

I held this creepy crawly bug during my Science After School lesson with the Primary students.  These roaches were part of a discovery table that my K-2 group of kids thoroughly enjoyed.

The goal of the lesson that Miss Sophie and I put together was to have our students be able to classify and identify an insect from a non-insect.  An insect has 6 legs and 3 body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen).  I'll now take you through the events of the hour we spent with the wonderful students:

• The students walked in and went to the discovery table.
• We told the students we would be talking about bugs.
• We took the students outside with clipboards, pencils, and magnifying glasses and had them draw bugs they saw (paying close attention to legs/body parts).
• When we came back inside, the students picked plastic bugs that looked like their drawings and we divided these selections into two groups on the board, but didn't tell students how we were classifying
• We then explained that they were grouped by insects and non-insects.  Here is a picture of me pointing to the non-insects:
  
  
  
  
  

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   After this we took example of African bugs (they're laminated and setting on the chalkboard) and held an insect and non-insect.  The students were to stand up if I was holding the insect or remain seated if Sophie was holding the insect.
  
  
  
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  The students then turned a wild thing into an insect.  It was a great application for the kids because they had to figure out how many more legs and body part the wild thing needed:
  
  
  
  
  

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  Once this was done we taught the kids the insect song which can be found here:  http://www.mrsjonesroom.com/songs/insects2.html.
  
  
  
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  Then we hatched "insect eggs."  We used pellets that turn into sponges in warm water as our eggs
  
  This is when Miss Sophie got me to hold the hissing cockroach (We were waiting for eggs to hatch.):
  
  
  
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  We then handed out spider rings which the students decided were not insects because they have too many legs.
  
  
  
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  Last but not least, we handed out an edible non-insect: barbecue flavored meal worms which the students surprisingly ate!
  
  
  
  Overall, the lesson was great!  I enjoyed the students and I really appreciate all the parents who brought their children to Fairmont State's Science After School Program.