I don’t mean to give you the heebie-jeebies, but did you know that at any given moment you are no more than 3 feet away from a BUG! Most of the bugs within your radius are so small that you could never see them without a high powered microscope. Don’t get freaked out, don’t go run to take a shower, and don’t start over sanitizing your house. Remember these bugs are still God’s creations and everything God makes is GOOD.Without these bugs the world would be a dirty place! Without the teeny-tiny dust mite, your house would be caked with dust and dirt and dead skin flakes no matter how often you dusted. Without bees, many kinds of vegetation would die out. Bugs help to decompose dead animals as well as the fur and hair from living animals. Without the strange dung beetle, the world would be full of you-know-what.
It is a fact that our world needs bug to survive. God sure knew what He was doing, but doesn’t He always.
So say it with me, “I like bugs, bugs are good, bugs are my friends.” Great…now let’s go catch some. There are several ways to make a “bug trap.”
Trap #1Cut the top off of a small plastic soda bottle. Turn the top upside down and insert it into the bottom. Drop a few small pieces of insect-attracting food such as raw meat, or sweet smelling fruits, into the bottle. Insects especially love bananas and peaches. Dig a small hole into the ground and place the bottle in the hole so that the edge of the trap is even with the ground. Bugs will follow the scent to the trap, fall in and not be able to climb back out. Be sure to check the trap in the morning, as more bugs come out at night.
Trap #2
This next trap is actually called a pooter. It is simply a vacuum cleaner for bugs.
You will need:* A small glass or plastic jar with lid
* 30” of thin plastic tubing
* a scrap of muslin or nylon
* an elastic band
* small amount of clay
Cut the tube into two bits, one 20” long, the other 10” long. Cover one end of the short tube with the scrap of muslin and secure it with the elastic band. (This will stop you from sucking up the bug.) Cut two holes in the jar lid to push the tubes through. Fix the tubes in place with the clay or anything similar, making sure any gaps are sealed. Place the end of the long tube over the bug you'd like to have a look at. Suck gently on the end of the short tube. Your sucking creates a vacuum in the tube, which will pull the bug into your jar.
Trap #3Place a large white poster board under a tree or bush. Shake the branches. You are sure to see a number of bugs fall from the tree onto your poster board.
Trap #4
Make a thin sugary concoction from mashed banana, sugar water or fruit juice, and honey. Use a paint brush to coat a tree trunk or fence post with the sweet smelling liquid. After dark, take a flashlight with you after and inspect the trunk or post. Gently scoop the bugs into a container for inspection indoors.
Trap #5
Create the above concoction but pour it onto a tin pie plate. Punch holes in the side and attach a string. Hang it a tree to attract butterflies
There are about 3 million species of bugs in the world, you are bound to find a good variety in your own backyard. Please encourage your children to be respectful to the bugs they collect. God took the time to hand craft these little buggers. He personally knows each one of them just as He personally knows each one of us.
Here are some more fascinating bug facts:
- All insects have 3 body segments, 6 legs, and 2 antennae. If a creepy crawly doesn’t meet all the criteria, it is not an insect. Contrary to popular belief, spiders are NOT insects; they have 8 legs and no antennae.
- Aphids are born pregnant and can give birth 10 days after being born themselves.
- Dragonflies are one of the fastest insects, flying 50 to 60 mph.
- Each year, insects eat 1/3 of the Earth's food crop.
- In its entire lifetime, the average worker bee produces 1/12th teaspoon of honey. The total distance of the many trips honey bees travel to produce a pound of honey is about equal to twice the distance around the world.
- The leap of an average flea is equivalent to a 100 pound man leaping 1,000 and enduring a g-force of 20,000 pounds with an acceleration greater than that of a space shuttle.
For this article, I had the pleasure of reviewing the Amazing Insects kit from Treasure Box Press. What a fitting name for this company, because they offer just that – treasures in a box. Founders Michelle Eichhorn and Cindy Hullings have created the perfect products for the homeschool science teacher. Easy to use, fun, and best of all, everything you need arrives on your doorstep in one cute treasure box!(By the way, did you know that one of Sam’s Science Adventure kits by Treasure Box Press was rated #1 by a panel of homeschooling moms and their tween daughters in 2005.)
The insect kit was just upgraded to include more activities. This kit can be adapted for preschool to 6th grade and is loaded with helpful worksheets, kid-friendly explanations, and review diagrams. Kids can create a Mexican Ant mask to wear, construct a bee hive, and build their own insect from a bag full of craft goodies.
Michelle and Cindy have also included activities to help the child see what it would be like if they were an insect as they learn how fast an insect’s heart beats and exactly how an insect’s vision works.
There is even a teacher’s manual which includes answer keys, activity extenders, field trip, website, and book lists. Also included are a very easy to use bug catcher/container and pocket sized bug guide that I am sure your future entomologist will not want to put down!
Treasure Box Press has generously donated an Insect Kit to one lucky reader. In addition to the insect kit, they are including 2 Uncle Milton Ant Farms, which can hook together with a connecting tube, so the ants can move in between. All you need to do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment telling me about a science-related activity you have done and enjoyed. **This giveaway ends on May 16th**
Amy is a Classical homeschooling mom to a six-year-old Superhero. In her column “Through the Microscope,” she writes about the beauty of science and finding God’s handprint through the miracle of everyday elements and processes. Be sure to visit her blog at Milk and Cookies.
Please visit our friends at Castle Heights Press!
16 comments:
I love this article - thanks for the insect catching info! We are studying insects right now, so this comes just in time.
We are really enjoying our Green Hour Challenges right now. We recently finished studying worms and performed an earthworm dissection. We learned so much about these wiggly creatures; they are amazing creations.
~Andrea
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/andijeane/
andijeane (at) yahoo (dot) com
Great post & giveaway!!! We will definitely be trying out some of these traps over the summer!
Good info. I'll definitely have to incorporate some of your ideas into our insect study when we get to it. Also, please enter me in your giveaway!
We really enjoyed our study of light earlier this year. We made a sundial, placed it outside and marked the shadow every hour. We also demonstrated how light is made up of many colors by coloring a color wheel and sticking it to a table-top fan and spinning the colors until they blended into white.
Wow, makes me what to stop doing SPace and do insects!!
Our Science experiment was about craters and the moon. We made a large cookie sheet of plaster of paris. We choose different sized rocks to represent meteors and ds threw them at our moon. Then we measured how large or small the craters were.
We love hands on activities.
I would love to win the insect kits!! :)
Most of our science happens right in our back yard. We go on a lot of nature walks. We also have learned alot about birds by putting bird feeders up right by our windows and charting which birds come to our house. We then check out books from the library on those specific birds to learn more. :)
What a fun article. My oldest is our resident insect and scorpion expert. One of my favorite science activities is to take our microscope out onto the back porch and check out all the tiny flowers that we find on nondescript plants and weeds in the lawn.
What a great article! We will be trying out some of the insect traps this weekend, as both my 4-year-old & 2-year-old are very into bugs right now! The older one has been pleading for an ant farm and a butterfly habitat for weeks! (We would love the giveaway!)
Last week we checked out several books from the library and completed the butterfly lapbook at Homeschool Share. It also helped that my husband just happened to catch a painted lady butterfly at lunch the day we started the study!
We haven't done too much 'science' with our little ones yet (5 and 2), but we do enjoy reading 'sciencey' books together, about butterflies, volcanoes, the human body etc. I think they'd have so much fun with these, they are very fascinated with insects on our nature walks (or when they are in the house!).
Cool! So many details. So the magazine is on-line and free? Am I getting this right? I would love to have an ant farm or any other thing. We totally enjoyed our Butterfly Farm -- that's a science related activity right? Actually, my all time favorite recent Science event was the Bluebell Hike. We went for a 1.5 mile hike at a local park with the largest Bluebell stand in Virginia. The whole forest is full of wild bluebells. It was truly beautiful. I even posted pictures on my blog! Amy B http://homeschoolblogger.com/bowofbronze
Sounds great!
One project we did this week (kindergarten) was putting food colouring into the water in a vase & putting a white tulip in it. The whole flower sucked up water, sending blue food colouring throughout the flower...right to the tips of the petals. My 5 year old thought it was too cool!
Cannot get enough of insects in our house. We are working our way through a life cycle study and so far we've done butterflies and praying mantids. I have to say that the praying mantids were probably the most facinating and enjoyable for the children and the most stressful for mom! In trying to feed our little carnivores we ended up adding another study on the life cycle of the fruit fly! The chain of learning never ends does it?
;0 )
Our son (9) loves science and inventions. Just this past week we have had fun making a radio our of toilet paper rolls, aluminum foil, batteries, wires, and a few other things. We don't hear a radio station yet, but we do hear something. Hopefully we will be able to tweak it and jam out to some music...our daughter is ready to dance away!
Thanks for your article,
Christin H.
Are we disqualified cuz we are members of HOTM? :) If not, we enjoyed blowing up a real volcano with green ash in our garage and on our kitchen table. Hindsight proved that the kitchen table was a really bad idea, but it was neat to see the ash crater even though it was toxic. ;) LOL
- Sprittibee
Loved this article! My 3 love bugs. Please enter us in the giveaway.
Our favorite science activity this week has been growing bean plants in an empty peanutbutter jar and seeing which ones grow fastest. We used black bean, kidney bean , and pinto bean and the black bean won hands down. Next we'll be transplanting it to our garden once the weather is a bit warmer. Yippee!
Okay... so I feel a *little* better about the critters around here. Our current science project, and thus our favorite for the moment, is our garden. We're learning all about different plants and trying to help them grow. And now we're learning about the bugs that like to eat the plants we're trying to grow. Hmmm... I'm NOT happy with those critters.
Thanks for the great post!
Great post! Thanks for the ideas!
We really enjoyed our study of electricity this year. My dd enjoyed making an alarm that sounded everytime someone opened her bedroom door! We made it using foil, wire and a battery, among other things. It was fun, but the alarm got a little annoying after a while. :-)
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