Exploring Minibeasts (Reception)
This is a hands on day that explores the world of minibeasts at Skelton through lots of outside activities, including bug hunts, games and crafts. All the activities encourage the children to look at minibeasts closely, thinking about how they move, their colour and shape, where they live and how they are the same and different.
National Curriculum Summary
Sc2 Living things in their environment - we find out about living things in the local environment, thinking about why different things live in different places and how we can contribute to looking after them.
Main National Curriculum Links
Sc2 5a, 5b, 5c
Available for Reception classes May to July.
What the day involves
The day begins with an introduction by the day leader, welcoming the children to the Centre and explaining what will be happening in the day. We have a general discussion about minibeasts, and have a warm up game.
The class is then split into groups (normally four groups, depending on class size) for the remaining activities: Crawling, Sliding, Swimming and Flying.
Crawling
We have a brief chat about minibeasts that crawl and then go outside to find some in one of our minibeast areas. Children identify the minibeasts caught by using simple pictures. On a walk we look for spiders and webs and see if we can find any caterpillars.
Sliding
We introduce the children to our wormery, where the worms eat our waste food and turn it into lovely soil. We investigate the vegetable garden looking for slugs and snails eating our vegetables. Then we have a close look at some snails and draw some snail pictures to take home.
Swimming
We talk about what ponds are like and what sort of creatures might live there. We then go and have a pond dip and put the creatures in a tray so we can have a closer look at them. During the activity we talk about what the minibeasts look like, how they move and other characteristics.
Flying
After a chat about minibeasts that fly we have a look at the butterfly life cycle and paint a butterfly picture. After that we go outside and hunt for flying minibeasts with meadow nets and then after a short and simple discussion about how bees pollinate flowers we play a game outside where the children pretend to be bees and collect nectar.
Visit our Links page to find some fun ideas for pre-visit or follow-up activities!
