Insects!

Matt Jones

PROCEDURE:

1. Greetings and Hello Song (I sing this embarrassingly humiliating “Hello song” with actions as a warm-up. Kids love it).

2. Flashcards: Show flashcards of the following Insects & have them choral repeat:

Ant bee beetle butterfly spider ladybug dragonfly snail

3. Game: Insect Row Race:

Each row (front of room to back) is a team. Have the front line stand up, show a flashcard, first kid to answer wins their team a point (add in double/triple point rounds to really get them going). Have the teacher be point scorer on the board for you.

4. Activity: Let’s Make an Insect Finger Puppet!

Whack them into lunch groups. Have 3 B5 sized colouring-in stencils – I used a butterfly (for the girls), dragonfly (for the boys), & a ladybug (for the obachans trapped in a kids body) – ready. You and the teacher walk around the room with multiple copies of each, and to each student simply ask “Which would you like?” Most kids will catch on and generate an answer. If they simply point, say “butterfly, dragonfly or ladybug?” Hopefully they’ll cough something up. If they still point at this point, hand it over. I got caught out by a real mute kid (no lie!!) and, well…it got ugly.

Have them colour it, offering 2 possible representations of each – the ‘realistic’ version, and the ‘creative’ version (e.g. a red and black spotted ladybug, and a rainbow-coloured ladybug, or such).

Have them cut it out (make sure there’s not too many complicated edges – I hand drew mine).

5. The RING!

As each kid finishes, have them come up to you at the front to get their ‘ring’ – you’ll stick this on the back in the middle of the cut-out finished stencil so they can slide the whole thing on their finger, as if it were a massive paper ring. I had my rings made from different coloured cardboard (a 1cm x 4cm rectangle was a good size, simply stuck with sticky-tape – I used my very first kid’s finger as a template).

Ask each kid “Which colour would you like?” and try and have them generate an answer. I cut and made the rings while the kids were colouring and cutting their stencils.

6. Watch in wonder, joy and awe as the kids roam freely around the room, lost in the delight of their finger puppet.

NOTES:

Feel free to substitute the Game (at point 3) for karuta, lucky card game, bingo, fly swat game (where they whack the right answer with a fly swatter) or anything that will reinforce and check the comprehension of the flashcards.

Play some music while they’re colouring, it’s a good 20mins worth, while you’re busy cutting and taping the coloured finger rings. I found Kylie and Danni Minogue worked best, however feel free to use any nationality pop Princess.

For the Flashcards, I found the images in those cartoon template books they have in the staffroom, but you can get them from clipart, or hand draw them. I hand drew my butterfly, dragonfly and ladybug B5 stencils myself, they were really easy. Add a cross-eyed face and a cheeky smile for that total kawaii factor.

As the first kids start to finish colouring, explain the cutting-out instructions (you’ll be amazed at how many kids think it natural to cut the wings off a butterfly).

I don’t know why, & you can test this yourself, but the girls ALWAYS went for the butterflies, the boys ALWAYS for the dragonflies, and the oba-chans-trapped-in-a-kids-body ALWAYS went for the ladybugs.

Feel free to use any other insects! I made this lesson up after not being able to tear three 1nensei boys away from their little insect ‘textbook’ before a class. They loved it! You’d be surprised where inspiration can come from.