This week Unplug Your Kids' weekly unplugged project was about INSECTS so we thought we'd do a little bug hunting and the kids even built a little bug habitat for our finds :) Armed with jars we set out to see what we could catch.
K found tons of beetles and a really neat millipede. The millipede isn't actually an insect though because they have more than 6 legs :)
All L wanted to catch was a grasshopper and it was a real barrel of laughs watching her hop around the yard after them as they leaped one step ahead of her each time *grin*. Big brother K had to help her catch one in the end :)
For some reason grasshoppers love to crawl on our front window so we got to have a close up look at the underside of them. The kids thought that their thorax (check out grasshopper anatomy here) looked like a jigsaw puzzle :)
After K & L were done capturing their insects they really wanted to keep them but I knew that they wouldn't last long in the jars so the kids decided to make them a cozy little habitat to live in for an extra day :) We took a small cardboard box and they filled it with dirt, rocks, leaves, and even dug up a piece of grass to plant in it so that they would have something to eat while staying in their insect-topia *grin*.
It was interesting to watch how they reacted in their new home. The beetles scurried around the walls eventually finding refuge underneath the rocks and the grasshopper planted itself on top of the leaf and was very content munching on it. A couple of hours later when we went back to check on them the grasshopper had actually ate quite a few holes out of the leaf! And the millipede had wound itself into the root system of the grass that was still above the dirt level. At first they were disappointed thinking that it had gotten away but after a little searching that was where they found it :) We'll check on them again tomorrow and then set them free. I'm definitely not going to be keeping them as pets! L thought that her grasshopper would make a lovely pet for her room. LOL. Have fun creating an insect-topia of your own!
Cori would do back flips to find a millipede. One of the teachers at our school has a rather large one and Cori has wanted one for so long. We are thinking of getting her one for her birthday. I've never seen one out in nature before. So very jealous! And for the record (although I am unsure of the type) some of them do grow rather large and make great pets!!! Good luck!
You have quite the selection of bugs in your backyard! The most common ones in our area seem to be ants, spiders, cockroaches and cidadas. My husband catches the former quite often for the kids to check out.
wow you got a lot of bugs there.. we mainly find lizards here... so always a few of them in containers (waiting to die :) so I try to get the girls to release them.. I can't have any more deaths on my conscience.
What great finds! And, I love the insect-topia. And, I love that you're letting the kids watch them for a day or two... and then setting them free. :-) Have fun!!!
Dana, www.alexml.blogspot.com
You are really tough! I would just die if that millipede was anywhere near me. We found a centipede in the house last summer, and I went to my mom's and didn't come till the bug guy had been here.
Looks like your kids had fun!
