I’ve got girls in my house. And it seems that no one had to teach them to FREAK out when they see a bug. I mean FREAK! It must be inborn. Which is why I was really surprised when their Aunt Stacie brought an insect activity with her on her last visit that they were excited and enthusiastic about doing it. This may have opened a new door for my girls!
She brought a simple 3-D puzzle kit with her for each of the girls: a gadfly and an ant. They look like this (aff. link.):
The girls LOVE puzzles. And apparently any kind will do – even if they are BUGS!
Our toddler/preschooler girls needed help with putting these together. Like, I think Aunt Stacie ended up doing most of it. BUT, the girls were engaged and interested in the entire process of building these little insects. 
After I posted a picture of the girls with their insect projects, one of my readers said that he and his sons paint theirs after they are done. And my girls LOVE to paint! So, I threw down our messy project drop cloth and some paints and the girls painted their insects until they were happy with the results.
What I love about this simple project is that it has provided hours of engagement for our girls. The building, the painting, the playing with, the talking about has been so much fun for the girls. And the freak out factor over bugs has definitely lessened!
The big science takeaway for this project is OBSERVATION. Asking questions about these bugs with the girls help encourage their observation skills. Here’s some of the questions we asked as we looked at our insects:
How many legs does your insect have?
Does your insect have wings?
Can it fly?
Does your insect have antennae (a new word!)?
What do those antennae do?
Where do bugs come from?
What do you think they eat?
Not all of these questions have easily observable answers, but that encourages us to look for answers to our questions. Getting the girls interested in the things they don’t know about is what this whole preschool age is all about! We can then search out the answers together and learn together.
I think we will work on some of these fun simple science projects this Spring, to keep our girls interested and engaged in science-related things:
April showers bring May flowers. This simple project to make rain in a jar and discover how rain is made from Learn Play Imagine looks like so much FUN!
We love to spot a rainbow, but we have never seen an exploding rainbow like this one from Smart School House! This looks awesome!
And using science to make a butterfly fly would be so COOL! This simple project from I Heart Crafty Things is a must do for my girls.
And while we are getting ready to celebrate Easter, I may work up the courage to try the walking on eggs experiment!
