Lesson Plan- Dragonflies

Nature School
Sept. 31, 2012
Dragonflies

Welcome song
Today we are going to learn about dragonflies!! Who likes dragonflies?

Letter of the Day
D for Dragonfly, Damselfly, darting, dipping, dashing, diving,

Dragonfly Body
Let’s first look at a picture of a dragonfly and learn about it’s body.
Head, thorax, abdomen, wings, eyes, legs

 (to the tune of  Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes)
Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen
Head, thorax, abdomen, abdomen
Four wings, six legs, and a compact eye
Head,  thorax, abdomen, abdomen

Let’s go for a little walk around the wetland and use our eyes, our ears, our hands, and our nose to explore! If you see something interesting, maybe a dragonfly? please share it with everyone! Do you all remember what we found last time we were here? Snakes, frogs, grasshoppers, etc. Wetlands are full of life!

Dragonfly Matching Game
Memory game with dragonfly pictures

Dragonfly Misquito Tag
-Place three lily pads on the ground. Choose one child to be a dragonfly. The other children are misquitoes. Ask them to choose a lily pad to begin on. When you call “switch” the misquitoes must run to a different lily pad. If the dragonfly tags them, they become a dragonfly and so on.

Dragonfly Facts (this info is more geared towards the moms and dads, although throwing in a fact here or there is good for the kids too)
-Dragonflies beat their wings about 30 times per second.
-Dragonflies are one of the oldest insects on the earth. There were dragonflies that lived 300 million years ago. They had a wingspan of 2 ½ feet.
-Dragonflies have a compact eye which means it is made of many lenses (humans only have one lense). Dragonflies eyes are made of 30,000 lenses.
-From egg to adult, a dragonfly can live up to six years.

What do dragonflies eat?
Dragonflies in their aquatic stage eat many kinds of small animals: aquatic insects, tadpoles, small fish, and other invertebrates. Adult dragonflies eat flying insects, especially mosquitoes, also aphids, smaller dragonflies, damselflies, and just about any other insects they can grab.

Craft:
Pipe cleaner and popsicle stick dragonfly. Use two pipe cleaners to make four wings, attach to popsicle stick using half a pipe cleaner. Decorate with markers, glitter, and sequins. 

Food Chain Game

Spider lesson pictures

Lesson Plan- Spiders

Nature School

Sept. 17th, 2012
Spiders

Welcome Song

Letter of the day- S for Spiders

Are you all ready to learn about spiders today?


Pretend Play:
First, let's pretend to be spiders. Let's curl up in a ball and pretend to be a spider egg. We have to squish together because spider eggs are all close together in a little sac. Then we burst open! Now we are a baby spider called a spiderling. Let's stretch out legs out and our arms out. We have to learn how to walk. It's hard! Then we shed our exoskeleton and grow bigger and bigger. Now we are an adult. We are HUGE! We can stomp around and jump and run really fast! Let's now pretend to make a web. We have to work really hard to make a beautiful and useful web. Then we CATCH bugs in it. Yum, yum, yum!

Did you know?.....
Spiders have 8 legs- their legs can grow back if they are broken off!
Spiders are NOT insects, they are aracnids
Spiders can climb
Spiders eat bugs
Spiders make webs

Hike and exploration time:
As you hike, look for an area where the kids can explore and look for orb weaver webs. Let the children lead. Ask them where they think spiders might like to live and make a web. When the children find one, give them plenty of time to examine and talk about it. Remind them to be gentle and not destroy it. The web is important to the spider. The spider has worked hard all night to make a useful web where it will be able to catch food. 

Find an area where the kids can explore and find natural items. Have them find multiples of one type of item- sticks, leaves, cones, flowers, etc. Count the number of natural items each child found. Lay out the items in groups 1-10. Let the children look at the groups and work on counting together.


Songs:
Sing The Itsy Bitsy Spider and add other verses such as:
Big Gigantic Spider (say with loud low voice and instead of fingers crawling use hands)
Very Quiet Spider (with a very quiet voice)
Hairy black spider (point at your hair)
Little baby spider (sing in a baby voice)

Poem:
The spider is knitting a magnificent web,
"I will use the silk as silver thread" She said.
She is webbing all day, she is webbing all night,
She is making a web unique and bright.
Her spinning glands and eight legs,
Help her to make a home for her tiny eggs.
In that house, the insects will be trapped,
With her silver thread, they will be wrapped.
A spider can be found in a garden, or in a barn
Always knitting a web, with its silver yarn.

Craft:
Paper plate spider web
Coloring page with body parts

Fun Facts for moms and dads about spiders:

Chart of Spider Facts

There are 37,000 known species of spiders in the world. Approximately 3,500 in the U.S. and Canada.

Spiders lay between 2 and 1,000 eggs.

Their skeletons are on the outside of their bodies. This is called an exoskeleton.

The mother wolf spider carries her eggs with her and keeps the young spiderlings on her back until they are old enough to care for themselves.

Some spiders live underground and catch insects for food by jumping out at them.

Spiders use a sticky silk to make their webs. The silk comes from six “spinnerets” located on the underside of their abdomen.

They use the silk as parachutes, as shelter and to catch food.

Spiders have as many as 12 eyes.

Coloring Page:

Spider Body Parts: