Description:
Spoty Hat and his friends, the insects, need help building a Bug Hotel!
Links to EYFS:
Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Communication and Language
Physical Development
Literacy
Mathematics
Understanding of the World
Expressive Arts and Design
Activity:
As the weather is getting colder, the insects at The Woodland Nursery had a meeting with Spoty Hat and asked him to help them in order to survive the cold winter months which are about to come. As the insects are not able to migrate or hibernate they will need a safe and cosy place to live. So Spoty Hat, who was worried about his friends the insects, decided to build a Bug Hotel for them all to stay in. As usual, he relies on the children’s help to built the Bug Hotel. The children needed to follow the instructions on the paper in order to build the Bug Hotel. There were pieces of wood with numbers written on them and the children needed to put them together in the right order, as per the instructions. They also needed a measuring tape to check the length of each piece of wood. After finishing the Bug Hotel, they needed to find the correct materials to put inside it in order to cater for various types of insects. New words were introduced like "migrate" and "hibernate" and their meanings discussed and explained.
We also talked about different insects such as bees, ladybirds, spiders, etc., and the differences between them. We also talked about different measurement types e.g. centimeters and inches.
Aims and Objectives:
This activity will help the children to understand more about changes in nature and it’s living creatures during the wintertime and other seasons. We spoke about different insects and how we can help them to survive during the wintertime but also day to day. For example, giving sugary water to bees in order to help them gain their strength and fly back to their nest. We discussed migrating/indigenous birds and which animals hibernate. After following the instructions to build the Bug Hotel, they also needed to read numbers from the instruction sheet and match them to the corresponding pieces of wood. The concept of measuring was introduced by using the measuring tape to measure the length of each piece of wood.
Home Activity:
Count how many different bugs and insects you can find in and around your own home. You may be surprised how many there are!
