Cycles - Insect Lives

Focus: Insects go through different stages as they grow from egg to adult. The stages of their life cycles are timed to fit with seasonal cycles.

Puppets (Grasshopper Egg and Nymph, Grasshopper Adult, Monarch Butterfly Egg and Chrysalis, Caterpillar, Adult Monarch, Insect Fairy, 'The End' sign)

Materials Checklist
Puppet Show (puppets, script, sign saying "Weeks later ...", pupa case attached to a plant, insect life cycle chart)
Metamorphosis Puzzles (insect puzzles, insect life information cards, insect field guides (optional))
Find Your Kind (duplicate sets of scented cotton balls, flashlights, firefly code cards, matching sets of cricket song cards)
Insect Hunt (Insect Stages search cards, clipboards, pencils, hand lenses, bug boxes, insect field guides (optional))
Transformation (insect nametags, crackers or celery, gym cones or other place markers, signs saying, "Eggs", "Pupate here", "Adults", "Next generation", egg carton, bowl of marbles)
Insect Stages (5/6 ELF) (12-15 numbered bug jars, Insect Stages Study Guide, pencils, clipboards (optional))

Supplementary Reference Materials (Transformation Insect nametag stencils, Insect Hunt cards, Insect Stages Search card, Information cards for Metamorphosis Puzzles, Puzzle Pieces, Complete Metamorphosis, Gradual Incomplete Metamorphosis, ELF 5/6 Activity: Insect Stages, Insect Stages Study Guide)

Additional Reading/Resources
Stokes Guide to Observing Insect Lives by Donald W. Stokes, Little Brown and Co., 1984.
Eyewitness: Insect, by Lawrence Mound, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, New York, 2000.
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices, by Paul Fleischman, HarperCollins, 1988. This collection includes "Grasshoppers," "The Moth's Serenade," and "Chrysalis Diaries."
ELF Corner: Buggy Blooms

For Younger Children
Many of the activities in VINS's new Small Wonders book can be used in ELF, too. To find appropriate activities for children aged 3-6, click here.

Teaching suggestions

Puppet Show
When using the charts to review the processes of complete and incomplete metamorphosis, make sure that children understand that there are several distinct stages in the development of caterpillars (in fact, 5!) as well as grasshoppers (more than the 2 illustrated).

Metamorphosis Puzzles
Once puzzles have been put together, discuss the characteristics common to adult insects: six legs, three body parts, antennae, (generally) wings.

This activity can be done in small groups – give each group 2- 4 puzzles to put together.

Show a color picture of the adult insect and let the kids read aloud a highlight about their insect from the About Me cards.

Large puzzles should be put together in clockwise fashion to reinforce the concept of cycles for younger children.

Find Your Kind
The clicking of the flashlights can be distracting and frustrating. You might want to leave the light on and cover with dark paper off and on.

For Fireflies: assign each child a number, 1, 2 or 3. At go, children make a fist in the air and then flash their number by holding up that many fingers, making a fist, holding up fingers, and so on as a signal for their mates. 1s should find other 1s, 2s other 2s, etc. Or, have 3-4 different colors of colored dot stickers. Give each child one to put on the palm of his hand. They all then flash their color by holding their hands up, and opening and closing them as a signal for mates to find matching color.

Crickets can either call each other OR sounds can be made by rubbing two sandpaper blocks together, plucking a rubber band, running a coffee stirrer over a comb, or shaking a glass jar filled with tiny bells.

With a big group of older students you can do sound, flash and smell all at once to simulate the activity level of a summer's night.

It can be time-consuming to fit all three activities of “Find Your Kind” into your workshop. You might want to just do the firefly and/or cricket activity.

Insect Hunt
If you collect insects, you can use the release ceremony poem from Amazing Insects unit when letting them go again outside.

With older children, have them watch insect behavior for several minutes and record their observations.

It's also fun to give each student a clipboard and 8 ½ x 11” paper, have them catch an insect and then draw it large enough to fill the whole paper. Helps them to see all the neat details!

For rainy days, collect insects (different stages if possible) ahead of time and bring them in in jars. Bring along a white sheet. Have kids stand around the edge of the sheet with bug jars. As you gently release the insects onto the sheet, have children look at different life stages or catch in bug jars for a close-up view.

Transformation
Props (like sacks for eggs, wings and antennae for adults) are helpful. One town used a long fabric tube for children to crawl through, entering as crawling larvae, stopping briefly to pupate, emerging at other end as winged adults.

Extensions
Older students were asked to look up their insect in a guide book and share one fact about it.

You might want to talk about insect pests versus insect helpers. This leads to discussion with older children on Integrated Pest Management and pesticide use.

Challenge students to draw a common insect (cricket? grasshopper?) from memory BEFORE the workshop. Then ask them to capture and draw that same critter when outside. What life stage is it in?

Perform a reading or two from Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices.

Kindergarteners can create a coloring book out of insect stage illustrations provided.

Younger students can act out Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar with all the children sitting in a circle like one giant caterpillar.

Give younger children a plastic knife and comb for the following counting song:
"Five little hoppers went out one day,
Through the fields and far away.
Mother hopper cried "zzz zzz zzz zzz" (rub knife along comb four times)
But only Four little hoppers came back."
Count down to zero, and then on the last verse have all FIVE hoppers return. (Linda Garrett)

5/6 ELF
Challenge the students as a class to find examples of all life stages.

Learning Goals
Focus: Insects go through different stages as they grow from egg to adult. The stages of their life cycles are timed to fit with seasonal cycles.

Concepts/Ideas:

• Insects go through different life stages as they transform from egg into adult. This process, called metamorphosis, may vary in form.
• Insect metamorphosis is a cycle repeating itself as one generation follows another. The stages of metamorphosis coincide with seasonal change.
• Because of their small size, insects need to send and receive messages in special ways, especially when they are seeking mates.

Vocabulary:
Insect, life cycle, metamorphosis, gradual/simple metamorphosis; egg, nymph, adult, complete metamorphosis, egg, larva, pupa, adult, cocoon, chrysalis, moth, firefly, cricket, caterpillar, pheromone, pupate, emerge, generation

Skills:

• Active listening to understand the processes of complete and simple metamorphosis in insects.
• Piecing together a puzzle to learn about life cycles of some insects and how cycle stages coincide with seasons.
• Experiencing through role-play the variety of ways insects signal their mates and use different senses to receive messages.
• Searching for and observing insects outdoors in different stages of their life cycles.
• Demonstrating through role play, the stages and cycling of complete metamorphosis

Grade Expectations
Grades PK-K (S30, S38) Insects are living animals that go through different life stages as they transform from egg to adult. Insects of the same kind can send and receive messages.

Grades 1-2 (S30, S31, S38) Insects undergo stages of development that include being born, developing into adulthood, reproducing and dying. Insects are capable of sending and receiving sensory signals; this enables them to locate a mate.

Grades 3-4 (S30, S31, S38) All insects have common stages of development; details of life cycles vary for different kinds of insects. Insects have physical and behavioral characteristics that help them to find a mate and reproduce. Insects may be sorted into groups based on the similarities and differences in body structure.

Grades 5-6 (S31, S38) Insect metamorphosis is a cycle that repeats itself from one generation to another. The stages of metamorphosis often coincide with seasonal change. Insects are classified into basic groups; insects in each group share some distinguishing characteristics including the type of metamorphosis they undergo.

Good Question! I have heard about 17-year cicadas emerging from the ground to become adults every 17 years. Do all 17-year cicadas everywhere emerge in the same year?

Answer: No. There are at least 12 different "broods" of 17-year cicadas that emerge in different years. Each brood is made up of three cicada species. There are also broods of cicadas with shorter periods between emergences. The brood that emerged in 2004 (Brood X) is one of the largest and most wide-spread of the periodical cicada broods. In addition to the periodical cicadas, there are "dog day" cicadas that emerge every year. For more information, please see this University of Cincinnati - Clermont College website.

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