This weeks early learning theme was all about Bugs

Bugs
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For the last couple of weeks we have had learning themes to help me plan out our activities while we are home learning. This week we have focused on bugs and mini-beasts as this was the topic for this term at my boys school.

Easy activities

I have to admit art and craft is not my strong point but these little pom pom Caterpillars were really quick and easy. I always need quick and easy crafts to keep the boys interested.

caterpillar craft
Easy caterpillar

We also did some glitter spider webs which we have done before as our attention builder with Attention Autism. Just PVA glue covered in glitter.

Halloween Activities for autistic children

Messy Play

For our messy play we did some spaghetti worms. My 6 year old helped me colour the spaghetti with food colouring and add a little oil so they were less sticky. Then we added a few bugs and spiders. My 4 year old loved playing with the spaghetti whilst my 6 year old was busy collecting the bugs in his pot.

Spaghetti worms
Spaghetti worms

Commenting with PECS

Some commenting with PECS on our Peppa Pig book that included a few bugs. I find the boys really enjoy when we use characters they love like Peppa with PECS as its a great motivator.

PECS commenting
Commenting with PECS

We did a few bug scavenger hunts over the week on walks and in the garden. There are lots of bugs in our garden at the moment so it worked really well.

Colouring with some bug themed colour by numbers worksheets from Twinkl.

In our TEACCH bag we included a few bug activities like this sorting activity below.

minibeasts sorting activity
sorting activity

We attempted some Play-Doh snails!

Turn taking practice with our Orchard Toy games, this week we have been playing Little Bug Bingo and Build a Beetle.

Books about Bugs

I was surprised how many stories about bugs we already had around the house. We spent time looking through some of our favourite books and pointing out different insects. Mad About Minibeasts is a lovely book perfect for teaching about bugs.

books about bugs
books about bugs

Our favourite bug books –

We had great fun playing the hungry Caterpillar including a picnic of all the fruits!

Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Bug movies

The boys really enjoyed Disney’s A Bugs Life but were less impressed with Antz but it was probably harder to follow the story for them. My youngest really loves the BEE Movie.

Bug Tuff Tray

At the weekend I set up a tray full of some of the bug toys, books and games we had been using for some free play and they loved it. I will have to try this more often, I set it up the night before so it was all there when they came down in the morning. This also gave me some peace first thing.

Over the week we included some wind up bugs in our attention bucket and sang incy wincy spider a lot. I think this was a great topic for the boys as they really got into it.

Bugs

I really recommend the Honey Bee Tree game below its great for motor skills and the kids really enjoy it.

You may be interested in my other theme weeks so far:

Body parts spelling
Spelling

What are your favourite bug related activities?

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***This post contains affiliate links, if you make a purchase from the links I may receive a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you but will support this blog***

2 Comments

  1. 29th May 2020 / 1:51 pm

    Some great ideas. We used to love the honeybee game too, in fact it was one of only a very few games mine could cope with playing.

    • admin
      Author
      29th May 2020 / 1:57 pm

      Thanks mine like pop up pirate too but are not a big fan of other games

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