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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
scavenger hunt colour by numbers
In our TEACCH bag we included a few bug activities like this sorting activity below.
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.
Play-Doh snail board games
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.
Our favourite bug books –
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- The Very Busy Spider
- Superworm
- Peppa Pig Tiny Creatures
- The Lazy Ladybird
- What the Ladybird Heard
- From Caterpillar to Butterfly
- Mad About Minibeasts
We had great fun playing the hungry Caterpillar including a picnic of all the fruits!
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.
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:
What are your favourite bug related activities?
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.
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Thanks mine like pop up pirate too but are not a big fan of other games