17 Fun Bug and Insect Lesson Plans & Activities Kindergarten

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

Spring brings lots of fun activities for young children!   Although I am not a fan of bugs in my home, I do love a good bug theme in the classroom.

Whether if you are a preschool teacher or a teacher of 1st grade even 2nd grade, I hope you find a few fun insect activities to add to your bug lesson plans.

Bug Read Aloud Lesson Ideas

Insect Detective by Stele Voake is a fantastic picture book that is a book that is in the Read and Wonder Series. I love this book because it includes a narrative text and informational texts.

Insect Detective Book Summary

The Insect Detective is a book about a young boy whose heart belongs to the world of bugs. He sets out on grand adventures outdoors, on a quest to discover them. As he travels, he shares all sorts of cool tidbits about bugs, like where they live, what they munch on, and how they keep safe.  As you can see, the illustrations are wonderful.

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.
Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

Insect Detective Interactive Read Aloud

In kindergarten classrooms, an interactive read-aloud is a structured activity where the teacher reads a book aloud to the students, focusing on decoding the text, while the students concentrate on understanding the story. The teacher navigates through the words and sentences, ensuring that the reading is clear and accessible, while the students are encouraged to engage with the content, pondering over the story’s events, characters, and messages.

This approach is vital because it separates the complex task of reading into manageable parts. It allows children to develop their comprehension skills without the added challenge of decoding, laying a solid foundation for their future reading and critical thinking abilities.

NOTE: I must have a propensity for making odd faces when I teach because EVERY. SINGLE. PHOTO has me with an odd expression. EVERY! ONE!

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.
Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

#1 Insect Schema Building

Checking in with our schema means tapping into what we already know about a topic before reading. This strategy helps us connect new information to our existing knowledge, making it easier to understand and remember. It’s like preparing a cozy room in our mind for new guests!

We worked on what we already knew about bugs and more specifically what we knew about insects.

These teaching slides are so helpful in guiding the peer-to-peer conversations in the classroom.

Students also respond on what they know and learned about bugs and insects.

#2 Inferring about Insect Helpers

Inferring is like being a detective. It means reading between the lines to understand what’s not directly stated. This strategy is crucial because it helps students think critically and deeply about the story, encouraging them to use clues from the text and their own experiences to build understanding.

Once again, the teaching slides help focus the lesson around student talk and building meaning together.

#3 Informational Writing About Insects

Together we gather more information about insects.  This is real-life messy anchor chart making at it’s best!

Students then took what they learned and wrote about insects.

#4 Insect Detective Video

This is a great video for Insect Detective!

# 5 and #6 Bug Craft and Sentence Study

Each of our Engaging Readers Reading Comprehension units includes a sentence study.   We converted these to teaching slides as well!

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

Depending on the level of grammar study you are doing with your class, you can move the color boxes to code the sentence.

Then this directed drawing is a great activity to follow up with.  Students can add their sentence to the craft.  

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

All of these detailed lessons and response pages can be found in our reading comprehension lesson plans:

#7 More Insect Science Fun!

In other texts, we learned about insects compound eyes.  I have had these kaleidoscope viewers forever, but you can find something similar by clicking HERE.

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

We enjoyed this fun activity from Deanna Jump’s Insect Unit .

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.
Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.
Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

#9 Labeling the Parts of an Insect

After students hands were nice and stick, the students labeled their bug masterpiece!

These are older photos, but you can still find the same fun activities in Deanna Jump’s Insect unit.

#10 Bug Poem

We love a good thematic poem!  We sing along with my original poem to the tune of: Five Green and Speckled Frogs!

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

This bug poem goes into their poetry notebook!

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

#11 Insect Decodable Text

This decodable book is about the life cycle of a butterfly!

This is an interactive text, so students match the pictures to the words in the book.  They love feeling successful when they can apply the phonics rules they have learned in an authentic way!

You can read another blog post about butterflies by clicking:

#12 Inferring with Bee Riddles

My class loved the daily inferring riddles.  This is a quick activity each morning.  I would read the riddle out loud, then students would write their guesses down on a slip of paper.  We would review the clues from the riddle and reveal the answer!

You can read more about Inferring with the Riddle of the Day in this blog post:

 

#13 Insects and Bug Handwriting Practice

This is another way to start the morning with some handwriting practice to go with your bug unit theme?

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

#14 Bug Flashcards and Fluency Practice

These little flashcards are a great way for students to practice reading high frequency words and word phrases.  Remember, we want to teach these high frequency words first, then ask students practice them until those high frequency words turn into sight words.

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

#15 Bug Spelling Game

One of the biggest shifts in my thinking with the science of reading is the idea of mastery.  I used to think that if students could read the words, they had mastered them.  However, research states that mastery happens when students can internalize the spelling of the words.

This little spelling game is a perfect way to assist students in building spelling mastery!

#16 Bug Math Center Activities

Here are some great math centers that are bug themed!

#17 Bug and Insect Digital Center Activities

One of the things I love about digital activities are the zero prep portion of them.  No copies, no lamination, just do!

Bug Lesson Plan Template

You can download this free template and edit it to make it your own! On the PDF version, each resource is linked so you can find it quickly.

Do you want to see more lesson plans like this?

Hopefully, you found a few hands-on activities and lesson ideas you can try for your insect week.  As I said, this sweet book is a great story that I’m sure your students will love.

Explore the tiny world of bugs with 17 hands-on bug lesson plans and activities for Pre-K and Kindergarten. Discover simple insect activities and crafts that spark curiosity in young learners. Straightforward and practical, these ideas are perfect for any classroom. Ready for some bug-tastic fun? Visit my blog to dive into each idea and bring the buzz of learning to your students. No frills, just real learning experiences.

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Deedee Wills

My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!

Hi, I'm DeedeE.

My teaching career allowed me to experience teaching in different classroom environments and grades. My heart belongs to early childhood education. My job is to make teaching FUN, ENGAGING, and EASIER. Welcome!
 

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10 Responses

  1. Hi Deedee! I have been using you & Deanna Jump’s Writing Through the Year Unit for years (and LOVE it!), but have just discovered your blog. Don’t know what took me so long! 🙂 Anyway, I noticed that for some of your blog posts on units of study (like teeth) you have a schedule of your week. I love this because I can see how you fit everything in. Do you have one for this insect unit? (Or did I miss it?) I always get restless about this time of year and want to change my classroom flow, plus I have nonfiction writing coming up next month and this would be a wonderful kick off. Thank you! – Amy Kovacs

    P.S. I bought one of your TPT Math & Literacy Center packs and am so excited to use it next month!!! Thanks for answering my questions so quickly on TPT.

  2. I love your pictures, ideas and lessons. This year, Im the Pre-K – 2 science teacher, and I am looking for lesson plans with differentiation, printables, hands-on activities covering the NYC Science Curriculum. Would you be able to help me, it would be appreciated.

    1. Hi there!

      I think you might like the science lessons that Cara Carroll has created. You will find her on Teachers Pay Teachers.

  3. Wow what a fabulous website! Your ideas are amazing! We are going to be Insect “Investigators”
    Thank you so much!!!

  4. Hi! I love your ideas, thank you for sharing all that you do! I follow you on TPT but can’t seem to find anything related to this unit. Would you mind sending me a direct link? I also can’t seem to find that book suggestion at the library…worth purchasing?

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