Nature School
Pill Bugs
April 15th, 2013
Welcome Song
Letter of the day- P for pillbug
Today we are going to learn about Pill Bugs! Sometimes we call them Potato Bugs or roly-pollies. Has anyone seen one before? Sometime we find them rolled up in a ball or under dried leaves. Have you ever looked under a rock or piece of wood and found some pill bugs?
Pictures of pill bugs:
Pill Bug facts:
-They live in your garden, under a flower pot, under rotting leaves, anywhere where they can eat rotting and decaying matter.
-They like to eat all the time! Their poop is square shaped! Isn't that strange?
-Pill bugs are not insects at all! They are crustaceans- like crab and shrimp
-Pill bugs live on land- but they can swim for a little bit if they accidently fall into the water
-In addition to eating decaying matter- pill bugs also eat bits of concrete and rocks to help with their digestion
-To protect themselves against predators (ants, frogs, lizards, lots of animals), they roll themselves into a ball.
-They have an exoskelton which they shed many times as they grow. First they shed their rear half, and the next day they shed their front half.
- In the fall, they dig deep into the ground and sleep until spring!
Pill Bug races- Use markers stacked top to bottom, lie them down on the ground to make different track lanes. Line up pill- bugs and let them go.
Make a pill bug maze with rocks, twigs, and sticks. See how quickly the pill bug can make it’s way through the maze.
Roly-poly relay races:
Tie two kids legs together like a two legged race. Tell the kids that they are like a pill-bug and must work together to coordinate their movements. Pill-bugs have seven pairs of legs!
Make a Pill Bug House:
1. Put a few inches of soil into the box
2. Find a rock or piece of concrete in the box
3. Find some moss, piece of potato, carrot peelings, bits of fruit, bit of lettuce. Mostly, pill bug love dried leaves and rotting pieces of wood. And a bit of shredded newspaper
4. Find a few pill bugs. Look under leaves or turn over a rock
5. Keep your pill bug home moist by spraying lightly with water once a day
