All insects are bugs but not all bugs are insects. In this lesson your child is going to play with stickers before diving into discussing what makes an insect special. Along with the stickers comes a free printable. Your children will love taking their new knowledge and applying it to the bugs they find all around them!

Check out more activities all about insects by visiting the button below. The week of lessons includes more than activity ideas, you will find coloring pages, book suggestions, and a schedule for your homeschool. All for free!

As an Amazon Associate, Playing for Hours earns from qualifying purchases.

What is an insect? 

For many of us it has been awhile since we have had to remember the exact characteristics that make a bug an insect. I suggest reading books with your child before this activity. These are my favorite books about bugs:

In the Tall, Tall Grass by Denise Fleming

It Fell from the Sky by The Fan Brothers

Usborne Magic Painting Bug Book by Abigail Wheatley

Characteristics of an insect.

• 3 body parts – head, thorax, and abdomen.
• 1 pair of antennas – these smell, taste, and touch.
• 6 legs
• 0,1, or 2 pairs of wings
• Exoskeleton – hard outer shell and no vertebrae

These five features are the only ones that we will focus on with our children because they are the most understandable and easily seen for a 3-5 year old. 

The insect printable.

The free printable is specifically designed to go with these stickers, Bug Stickers. The colorful stickers are designed to match an insect on the printable. Direct you child to match based on selecting a black and white insect and searching the stickers for that particular one. The reasoning behind searching in this way is because there will be a few that are only bugs. At the end of the activity we will discuss the spiders, snail, centipede, and scorpion.

However, if your child does decide to match backwards, that is not a problem. If they do come to one that they cannot find a match for, such as a spider. Direct them to place the animal on the blank back of the printable. 

Once they have matched all stickers that have matches, now is the time to compare the difference between the remaining stickers and the used stickers. Discuss the characteristics of the ones that match an insect.

3 body sections.

Begin by counting the number of sections – 1,2,3. Select a few different ones. Then name them and have your child point to the head, thorax, and abdomen on a few different insects before comparing to the leftover bug stickers.

1 pair of antenna.

Next, look for antennas. Some were not made visible on the stickers so I left them off of the printable to help with sorting but you can explain that not all antennas are thick. Some are as thin as the hair on your head and would be difficult to see, such as a dragonfly’s antennae.

3 pairs of legs.

All insects have three pairs of legs. The legs have different uses depending on the requirements of the insect: seizing, digging, jumping, running, or swimming. If you have a set of bug toys, this is a set we have, now is the time to gather the them together and allow your child to examine the leg differences between a grasshopper and an ant.

0-2 pairs of wings.

The wings are made up of mainly two components a very thin membrane and veins.

The exoskeleton.

The material that makes up our fingernails is extremely similar to the exoskeleton material, chitin.

Insect Matching

Download for free by signing up for the newsletter. You will receive updates of all that is happening at Playing for Hours.

Subscribe

We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.

Built with ConvertKit

Let’s go insect hunting

No more boring discussion! Now that we have front loaded all this wonderful new information for our 3-5 year old it is time to go and apply it! 

Actively hunting for insects can be difficult. I recommend beginning your search without a net. From my first experience doing this activity with my eldest, he was more interested in running around with the net. He had little interest in searching and observing the environment for where we were likely to find our subjects of study.

Thus, after your child begins to show signs of becoming weary of this activity you can then give them the net and reignite their interest. This way you have not changed the focused learning. You can still offer the net later to allow capture of flying ones and a closer study. Here is the set of nets I used the first time with my son, I was impressed with their durability, Bug Catching Nets. Both my sons did eventually break them but it took some time and diligence.

Disclaimer

When my boys and I originally hunted for insects, with my current 3 year old, it was a warmer month. We live near woods, and just the prior day there were several spotted so why did they all disappear and hide on the exact day and time I planned to do this activity? I do not know. If this happens to you, or you are completing this activity following the Letter of the Week schedule and Ii is for Insect falls in a cooler season, I have a few tips to help make this a memorable week regardless.

Tips

• Simply by searching for an insect can teach your child the preferred habitat and environment. Under rocks, on leaves, in dead wood, on the side of a house, near flowers. The act of hunting for insects teaches a lesson on habitat and diet. Teach your 3-5 year old how insects eat is an excellent post if you are interested in teaching your child about the different ways our six-legged friends eat.

• Consider trying to find a spider. There are usually at least one or two in my house at any given time that I am actually aware of. I could probably spend five minutes and find one of the creepy crawlies. Studying the opposite of an insect can also be beneficial to learning more about them. 

• Utilize the Internet. Watch videos on insects. We have watched informational videos, battle videos, and more. My favorites are the videos that are simply beautiful cinematography utilizing impressive cameras and strategy to capture close up footage but my boys really enjoy the bug battles.

• Keep in mind that anytime, all around us is a perfect opportunity to reinforce information that we have learned. In the future always be on the lookout for insects and point them out. Review their special features while you and your preschooler observe them. 

Making the most of it.

Hence, this is exactly what we did when all the insects vanished for a day. There were simply none to be found even after sifting through leaves, turning over rocks, etc. Maybe the slight cold snap the night before scared them all away. 

Either way, they were back a few days later and my three and five year old, and myself were observing bugs and insects constantly. Thus, we engaged in discussion to confirm it was an insect and the learning opportunity we had missed, was completed. 

Insects are all around us.

Truly they are everywhere, whether we want them to be or not. This lesson will intrigue and educate your child to observe and search for insects on a regular basis. You can emphasize observing them as well by calling for your child when you spot one. Study it together. Likewise when they reciprocate, come running to check out their discovery as though it is your first time seeing a Black swallowtail or June bug.

Let me know what your children think of insects and learning more about them in the comments.

If you are interested in more lessons about insects with your 3-5 year old check out the week, Ii is for Insect. Or see all that the Letter of the Week has to offer by clicking the button below. Every letter includes activity ideas, coloring pages, book suggestions, and printables. 

Insect Matching & Hunting

Activity Instructions