Part One: Insect Inspectors
After having had ample time to explore every nook and cranny of indoor life, this post will focus on the life that has continued to bustle away outside. It comes as the first part of a series helping fresh homeschoolers with teaching their little ones about life outdoors and celebrating biodiversity.
Today’s subject is about UK-native insects and bugs. Let us venture out to meet them.
Bees—Britain’s favourite garden friends, and conduits for the enriching lesson of pollination. Have the children ID a bumblebee or perform the honey bee’s waggle dance. If this is too juvenile for the juniors then bewilder them with this cuckoo bee behaviour!
Earthworms—little wriggly creatures that are never far away from our feet. Why not teach your child this well-known song? Then let them know this all day wiggling has an important function for our soil too.
Spiders—a divisive creature with a large fan and fear base around the world. Young ones can keep engaged just watching these little critters at work whilst these fun facts should help to keep the older children interested. Toddler trivia: they are not not actually insects, but live in the same family tree of arthropods (have the them try and pronounce that!).
Butterflies—who does not delight at the sight of these insects? Their wing colours and shapes cannot help but inspire awe. Explaining their cycle of life often causes confusion—children cannot always visualise these grand, pretty creatures as once a caterpillar—so it is always handy to have a book like this to show them.
Moths—these typically-nocturnal cousins of the butterfly are not everyone’s cup of tea. Even so, like bees, these pollinators are important for our ecosystem (have the children spotted a theme?) and deserve equal admiration. What they may lack in vibrant colours they make up for in other shades of beauty and talent. Teach them how some navigate by the moon, that others mimic predators and some can ‘smell’ another moth from several miles away.
Ladybird—a children’s favourite, with thousands of different species enjoyed worldwide. These pretty beetles are pretty smart but also prone to appearing on us! Does your child know that they discharge a pungent smelling fluid to ward off prey? And that they fly (yes, they have nifty wings tucked under those chic jackets!)? A gentle way to encourage them to take off is to allow them to crawl to the top of a skyward-pointing finger. Wave them on their way … to the next human-landing pad!
Wasps—sometimes mislabelled a pest when, in fact, are themselves one of nature’s pest controls and many a farmer’s friend. They are renowned to sting when they feel threatened so the best practise is to respect them at a distance, which in turn should earn mutual respect. Moreover, note that they are as equally sugar-loving as humans so covering picnic food, such as carbonated drinks, reduces unnecessarily inviting them over.
All the above creatures have an important place in the wild outdoors and in turn the living planet; they need to be understood to then be protected. Later in this series we will share some fun ways in which we can all help support life outdoors return to robustness and variety, and do our part in reducing human’s global impact by looking after our local environment.
Meanwhile, have fun ticking this lesson off your planner and stay tuned for more homeschool trips at your fingertips!