Bugs

Books

🌿🌻Some Bugs by Angela DiTerlizzi (illustrated by Brendan Wenzel)
Available as a board book, this is easily my favorite bug book for kids. Great illustrations, great rhyme schemes and flow, and great content.

🌿🌻Caterpillar to Butterfly by Melissa Stewart
This photo-illustrated board book shows us the development of a monarch from larval caterpillar, through the process of metamorphosis, to the emergence of a wet-winged butterfly drying its wings and flying away!

🌿🌻The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle
This large hardcover book plays a chirping sound when you turn to the last page. Of all of Eric Carle’s bug books, this one is my favorite because it has so many different bugs that the cricket talks to!

🌿🌻Bug Hotel by Libby Walden (illustrated by Clover Robin)
This fabulous nonfiction lift-the-flap board book explores the different life cycles, diets, and significance to humans of many bugs that might utilize different habitat substrates in a homemade “bug hotel.”

🌿🌻The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
A young and very caterpillar hatches out of an egg and begins to eat fruit after fruit followed by some even more unlikely foods until he gets a belly ache! After eating a plain leaf, he feels better and builds a cocoon for himself, where he stays until he emerges as a butterfly. (Note: Cocoons are for moths, chrysalises are for butterflies.)

🌿🌻The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle
This board book has textured pages that let you feel the spider’s web on the paper at each stage of construction. It also features a full barnyard of animals and the sounds they make, if you’re working on animal sounds.

🌿🌻A is for Ant by DK Publishing (illustrated by Kate Slater)
This illustrated Animal Alphabet board book features alliterative facts about ants from around the world, including

🌿🌻B is for Bee by DK Publishing (illustrated by Charlotte Milner)
This illustrated Animal Alphabet board book features alliterative facts about bees from around the world, including native bumblebees, carpenter bees, and mason bees.

🌿🌻City Bugs by Antonia Banyard
In this board book, simple text invites children to explore wildlife outside their doors, including ants, ladybugs, mosquitoes, caterpillars, and snails. Photo illustrations feature closeups of wildlife alongside pictures of children interacting with nature.

🌿🌻Creep! Crawl! by Kaaren Pixton
This textless Indestructibles book for babies features beautiful illustrations of diffferent crawling animals, including a slug, snail, spider, caterpillar, centipede, and worm.

🌿Begin with a Bee by Liza Ketchum, Julia Briggs-Martin, and Phyllis Root (illustrated by Claudie McGehee)
This illustrated nonfiction book describes the life cycle and hibernation habits of the endangered MN-native rusty-patched bumblebee.

🌿Bugs by Tim Robinson (illustrated by Casia Joy)
A child and her grandfather search for bugs outdoors, using fingers, a magnifying glass, a lantern, and a bug book.  This book has great illustrations, representation of people of color in science, good rhyme and rhythm, and great content and message.

🌿Sheri Mabry Bestor – Great illustrations, simple books with more detailed texts boxes that can be skipped for easy reading but may enrich the books for interested children.  Titles include Soar High, Dragonfly and Good Trick, Walking Stick (both illustrated by Jonny Lambert).

🌿Dianna Huts Aston (illustrations by Sylvia Long)- Beautiful illustrations and text layouts that provide good information about insects for older children.  Titles include A Beetle is Shy and A Butterfly is Patient.

Creative Art Opportunities

🐞Painting with gummy worms
🐞Black dot marker on red paper
🐞Sponge painting with black on orange paper
🐞Black bar collage on yellow paper
🐞“Butterfly” Symmetry paintings

Hands-On Experiences

⛅️Bug life cycle figures
⛅️Dangomushi isopod toy (pricey and sometimes difficult to obtain, but very cool if you like isopods)
⛅️Explore a sensory bin of soil with bug toys
⛅️Explore a sensory bin of wild rice with bug toys
⛅️Bug finger puppets
🌿Look for and examine bugs with a magnifying glass (be careful of sunlight!)
🌿Bug nets
🌿Bug tents for dragonflies or butterflies
🌿Solid bug jar to protect delicate bug bodies from strong little hands
🌿Portable pop-up tent in case you find something while on a walk

Songs to Learn and Sing

“Millie the Millipede” (to the tune of “Sally the Camel”)

Millie the millipede has 10 legs
Millie the millipede has 10 legs
Millie the millipede has 10 legs
So crawl, Millie, crawl!

Millie the millipede has 9 legs (etc)

“There’s a Spider on the Floor“ - This was a Raffi song written by Bill Russell, but the words I learned while student teaching are quite different from the original

1. There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor
There’s a spider on the floor, on the floot
There’s a spider on the floor and he’s coming through the door
There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor

2. There’s a spider on my shoe (and I don’t know what to do)
3. There’s a spider on me knee (and he’s looking right at me)
4. There’s a spider on my tummy (and I think I want my mummy)
5. There’s a spider on my arm (and he won’t do any harm)
6. There’s a spider on my head (so we’ll knock him off instead)
… now the spider’s on the floor, on the floor

“Country Garden“ (English folk song–verse 2)

How many insects come here and go in an English country garden?
We’ll tell you now of some that we know, those we miss you’ll surely pardon:
Fireflies, moths, gnats, and bees
Spiders climbing in the trees
Butterflies drift on the gentle breeze
There are snakes, ants that sting, and other creeping things
In an English country garden.

“Dragonfly“ by Raffi (excerpt)

Dragonfly, dragonfly

Flying low and flying high
Light as a feather in the sky
Lovely dragonfly

Dragonfly, dragonfly

Swoop so low and swoop so high
Light as a feather flying by
Lovely dragonfly

“Bumblebee (Buzz Buzz)” by Laurie Berkner (excerpt)

I was sitting in my garden
When I saw a bumblebee
He said his name was Oscar
And he went

Buzz buzz buzz

Ba-buzz buzz ba-buzz buzz
Buzz buzz buzz ba-buzz

Buzz buzz buzz

Ba-buzz buzz ba-buzz buzz
Buzz buzz buzz ba-buzz

“Itsy Bitsy Spider”

The itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the water spout
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out
Out came the sun
And dried up all the rain
And the itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the spout again

NIYN – Bugs on Spotify
All playlists are works in progress and are actively curated when I have a unit in play or preparation, so new songs may appear and old songs may be removed if they don’t suit my designs.