Materials
picture of a cricket
picture of a grasshopper
books about crickets and grasshoppers
live cricket or grasshopper
Instructions
1. Spread out different pictures of
various bugs. Discuss the bugs'
life cycles, diet, and so on. Talk
about the way the bugs get from
one place to another: crawling,
flying, hopping.
2. Tell the children they are going
to have a bug race.
3. On large paper, create a graph
by gluing the various bug
pictures across the bottom and then adding numbers up the left side ranging
from 1 to 100.
4. Glue bug cutouts to match the pictures on small toy cars (one per child) and
write one child's name on each bug.
5. Place tape for the starting line on the floor and tape for the finish line at a
distance.
6. Have the children come up two at a time to race their bugs.
7. Let them use yardsticks to measure how far their bugs traveled.
8. Help them graph their results by their bug picture on the chart.
9. Afterward, ask the children which type of bug might win a real race: one that
crawls, flies, or hops?
Assessment
Consider the following:
* Can the children identify various insects by their characteristics?
* Can the children tell you how certain bugs get from place to place?
* Do the children indicate a basic understanding of graphing?
