Insects {Print & Play Pack}

Hey all! I am so excited to introduce you guys
to my newest Print & Play Pack... This one has gone BUGGY... as in all about INSECTS!

Check it out. This printable and playable pack is designed so
you can pick the topic
and order. And you can easily get
age appropriate FUN printables
and playable activities.
The first section in this pack focuses on "What is an Insect?" This section comes with all these materials.

Here are the teacher charts and student printables.

I use the blank chart to project and write in to prompt my learns to see what they know about insects. Here is my chart we use in my class.

Then we got busy sorting picture charts into which were INSECT and which were NOT AN INSECT.

We went through our filled in chart or referred to the chart we made together to make sure the insect cards were actually insects.

Next, we used one of these printables to make sure we knew the difference between an insect and not an insect.

The only difference in these two printables is the boxes on the leaves to guide little learners on where to glue.

It wasn't a problem to glue down the pieces using the printable without boxes. I think it is more natural, but that is just my opinion... insects on leaves just feels right.
We also used one of the printables in Daily 5 to write about what an insect is. We used the teacher chart and insect cards here too.

Check out some of our work. We wrote on the right and drew pictures on the left.

The next section in this pack covers "Where Insects Live."

Let's face it... as adults we know insects seem to live anywhere. And everywhere we don't want them to live. It grosses us out, but kids think it so cool. Here is a shot of some of these easy to prep materials.

Here are the teacher charts for this topic with the student printable.

We completed the teacher chart together. My students filled in the blank boxes on their printable, but left the writing area blank. This provided them a word wall.
Then, they picked an insect card from the day before {the cards from What is an Insect?} and wrote about where THAT INSECT lived.

Then we can use these sorting pieces for pocket charts.

This is hard because insects can be found all over. BUT this sorting activity is ideal for making students THINK about where they actually live.
Here is what we decided as a class..

We knew some "bugs" walked across water or needed water, but none lived in the water. In fact, my students said they only see dead bugs floating in water. We also knew bugs were not on the sun or moon. Fire was def out. And we knew that every continent has insects on it, but we thought they hibernated when it was too cold. Therefore, they couldn't live in an igloo. No one saw bugs living in their fridges either- thank goodness. And an insect would crawl out of a cage, but not a terrarium.
Was I happy with their thoughts and processes? YES. Was every little thing correct? NO... but learning is an evolution. As we read more books about insects and learn more facts, we can change the cards around. I strongly feel that backing up our thoughts is important at this age.
The third section covers the topic of "Why Do We Need Insects?"

Here are the charts for this topic.

And the pocket chart sorting pieces.

This sorting activity has two types of cards. The top cards have green text. They are the cards that tell us some ways insects help. The other cards are insects. First we use the green text cards to talk about ways insects help us. Then we use the insect cards to talk about the way EACH INSECT helps. Most insects do more than one thing to help.
Here is one image of our pocket chart.

We knew that beetles and grasshoppers were in the ground, and thanks to A Bug's Life references, we knew they helped the ground. We didn't put ant there because we live in the south and have fire ants. THEY DO NOT HELP THE GROUND. They bite us and it hurts.
We knew that all insects that fly help pollinate flowers. We were not sure which insects help keep plants healthy. {They were overlooking the ladybug... but we will get to that next week.} Bees make wax and honey, so that was easy. But they also pollinate flowers. And MOST insects are food for others.
Here is how simple this section is to print and prep. {Takes a few minutes max.}

The last section of this pack covers the "Parts of an Insect." I used an ant because it is easy to identify the parts of an insect with this image.

This pack also has parts of an insect pocket chart pieces and a printable.

Here is the header and parts to match.

This is the only section we didn't use yet... it is scheduled for Monday!
I know you are going to LOVE this whole pack. Here is an image of all the parts printed out, cut, and organized in my favorite... COLORED BAGGIES.

I made sure the orders of each section ALL MATCH. This is a huge help with management and sorting.
I placed each section of cards into matching colored baggies... from WALMART... And we are ready for business.