Minibeasts

[Guest]

After Easter I've got an 8 week half term and our topic will be minibeasts. I have a Reception/Year 1 class (9/20) I'll have to do whatever the science things tells me for my Y1s but I'd love some ideas if anyone has done this before. The school works on a 2 year cycle so I've not done this topic before.

Any ideas would be great,

 

Nich

x

[Guest]

Hi I am Kat and I joined yesterday. If you can explain how I attach a file to the forum I have a medium term plan for Mini- beasts. It is from a website that I can't remember at the moment. It is a foundation stage plan with the ELG's but the ideas can be easily adapted for Year 1. I too teach Reception/ Year 1

[Guest]

Um I think I can see how to attach sorry I am still learning about how to work with this forum. Here goes.

minibeasts.doc

[Guest]

I've done minibeasts before, it's a really good topic!!

We made ladybirds by paper mache. 2 children worked together and then we cut the balloon in half to make 2 ladybirds which they painted. (pipe cleaners for antannae) We made giant snails by putting newspaper in tights, rolling one tight leg up for the shell and keeping the other one flat. Also caterpillars the same way! We made butterflies by attaching cardboard wings to a toilet roll.

I also did a maths display: counting how many spots altogether on a ladybird after painting them and writing some adding sentences underneath. (2 (spots) add 1 (spot) is 3 altogether etc.)

Theres lots of great books for literacy: obviously the hungry caterpillar but theres a whole range of minibeast books by Eric Carle. The very lazy ladybird is good. Anansi the spider books. The snail and the whale by Julia Donaldson. Can't remeber the others at the moment but we also looked at a lot of non fiction books and made our own mini information books. We did What am I books? for the rest of the class to guess the minibeast from the clues.

We did a weekly minibeast hunt and collected bugs to bring back and look at more closely before letting them go. We also kept snails for a few days and I tried to make a wormery but that wasn't very successful cos all the worms stayed in the middle (should have made it narrower!!)

I bought an inci wincy spider cd from www.kidsmusic.co.uk which has only minibeast songs on. Some are really catchy although we only learnt a few cos some had too many lyrics! The children enjoyed listening to it at snack time. We also had a minibeast ball where all the children came in for the day dressed as a giant bug!!

Hope that is helpful! becky

[hali]

get one of those butterfly farms only about 320 theres a link on here somewhere!!!! will find it for you.

[Inge]

spiders

 

we make spider tanks for observing spiders , we ask parents and children to bring in their spidrs to put into a tank Must admit other staff are a bit wary of this activity. The children are facinated watching them for ages, and the more goulish enjoy watching the big ones catch the smaller ones in their webs!! They also enjoy drawing them. there is a picture in the Gallery link above.

 

(use a tank, put soil or sand in the bottom, wet this and add twigs, water tray, tubes stones logs , spiders will be Ok for about a week.) Then release them again ( one child said that her spider was going to enjoy the holiday in the new garden! pity it had been eaten!!! )

 

Inge

[Guest]

spiders

 

we make spider tanks for observing spiders ,  we ask parents and children to bring in their spidrs to put into a tank  Must admit other staff are a bit wary of this activity. The children are facinated watching them for ages, and the more goulish enjoy watching the big ones catch the smaller ones in their webs!! They also enjoy drawing them. there is a picture in the Gallery link above.

 

(use a tank, put soil or sand in the bottom, wet this and add twigs, water tray, tubes stones logs , spiders will be Ok for about a week.) Then release them again ( one child said that her spider was going to enjoy the holiday in the new garden! pity it had been eaten!!! )

 

Inge

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Thanks for that idea, but there is NO WAY IN HELL I'm having spiders in my room! I'm very arachnophobic, they make me feel physically sick even to look at pictures of them. I'm really not looking forward to this topic, as I can't stand the things!!

 

Thanks fairynough for that download- I shall read it later when I've more time. What mix of R and Y1 do you have?

[Guest]

I have 15 Reception and 8 Year 1's. Most of my experience has been with more Year 1's. Two curriculums can sometimes seem very tricky to juggle. Every year my Reception intake has grown. I hope the planning will be of some use to you.

[Guest]

Nichola, you can get treated for arachnophobia - try contacting London Zoo, they're very successful.

Butterfly farms are obtainable through Insec t Lore (painted Lady butterfly) and they are wonderful.

We make clay butterflies and decorate them symmetrically. Also buttterfly paintings by folding paper.

If you have the very brilliant "Foundation stage handbook" by ASE (Max de Boo is one of the contributors) there is a whole chapter on Incy Wincy spider.

Enjoy!

[Guest Tracey F]

I had excellent results last year with an ant world with my R class. The children were fascinated and spent ages watching them burrowing away making their tunnels. There was a huge amount of learning that came out of this, the children still talk about it now. Ours was an 'old style' ant world wchich we filled with sand and soil, but you can now get space age ones filled with clear gel which contains all the nutrients the ants need.