Teacher's Guide

LT-A1.2

1. Most infant departments will have an ample supply of materials for sorting - beads, cubes, wax crayons etc. Shells gathered from a local beach or leaves from a selection of plants also make suitable materials for the children to work with. As an additional task use copies of sheet A13a (G), A13b (G), A13c (G) and A13d (G) for the children to cut out the pictures and sort them into groups. These pictures can then be stuck onto a larger sheet in their groupings.

Beasty Hoose

Cut a large lemonade bottle in half (at least 2 or 3 litre size) and put a small amount of moist soil in the bottom. Add a few twigs from a shrub or bush that the creature likes to eat and perhaps a small stone or two. Put the animals in - e.g. 2 or 3 snails, and replace the top half of the bottle and Sellotape in place. Remove the bottle lid and cover the opening with some gauze, Jaycloth or kitchen towel and secure with an elastic band.

Only keep the animals for a couple of days and replace the leaves every day and make sure that the habitat remains moist.

If your class are unable to supply minibeasts, you could try collecting them as a class activity. To make simple traps, dig a small hole and put a yoghurt carton into it. Put some leaves in the bottom to give some cover to any trapped insects and leave it for a few hours.

Another idea for catching insects is to put a large piece of white polythene e.g. a swing bin liner, under a leafy bush. Beat the bush gently with a stick or give it a shake and insects in the bush may lose their grip and fall onto the sheet.

Digging up a small patch of earth may reveal some small grubs, worms etc. or you can lay a small piece of old carpet on some bare soil (make sure the soil is damp not bone dry or sodden) and leave it for a few days. When you lift the carpet you may find an assortment of creatures underneath. Another alternative is to leave a plastic bag full of something weighty - e.g. soil, on concrete or paving slabs next to a grass or earth area. After a week or so you will find a collection of insects and grubs at home underneath.

A pooter is a special collecting bottle which has two straws sticking through its lid. One is short and the other long. The short one is for you to suck through and the long one will probably have a piece of tubing attached. Place the tubing over the insect you want to collect and suck through the short pipe. The insect will be sucked into the container and not into your mouth!

Some shops which sell toys especially for children in their early years now sell excellent sets of plastic insects which are well modelled and fairly cheap. These could be very useful for this lesson especially if you do not have access to a school garden or are unable to take the class outside for various reasons.

If required, further work on grouping creatures could be done as a paper exercise using the pictures from worksheet The key to Worksheet A13b (G) is given below.

Key to sheet A13b

Worksheet A13c (G) and A13d (G) make a game which can be played with a small group of children using a dice. Decide first which body part goes with which number on the dice

e.g. body = 1, head = 2, left leg set = 3, right leg set = 4

antennae = 5 and sting = 6. Take it in turns to throw the dice.

If you throw a 1 you choose a body. Once you have a body you can start to collect other body parts as your throws decide. The winner is the first person to collect a complete insect.

The plants and animals could be placed in separate groups to start with and then either group be sorted further.