Thursday, September 10, 2015

Mini beast hunt

We have been talking all about materials in our surroundings, and in our gardens and school ground in particular.
 Today we headed outside to discover what kind of mini beasts and bugs we share our school with.  Here are some things we discovered:
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It is very easy to find mini beasts if you know where to look (log piles are home to so many different types of bugs).
Armed with pooters (for sucking up bugs), bug viewers (for catching and keeping bugs) and identification guides and identification keys (for identification) we headed around the senior school.
We found and collected lots of interesting mini beasts:- woodlice, beetles, centipedes, slugs, a harvest man,worms, a giant spider and even an angry wasp.  We guessed the wasp was angry because he was flying around the viewer very quickly and trying to get out.
We had a good look at all our minibeasts.  We counted legs, looked for antannae, looked at colours and patterns.  We used the identification guide and keys to help us identify the bugs we were not sure of.
Here are a few interesting things we learned:
All insects have six legs.  If they do not have six legs they are not insects. (Woodlice have 14 legs, spiders have 8 legs so neither are insects)
Snails never ever leave their shells.  They are born with a shell which grows as they grow.  Slugs are not snails without shells.  Slugs will never ever have a shell.
A honeybee will die after stinging. Wasps can sting again and again.
Apart from mini beasts we also found some other interesting things like fungus (mushrooms), blackberries (green, then red, then black), feathers and poppy seeds in their pod.
We were very careful to release all our bugs back in their own environment before we went back to class.
We really enjoyed our mini beast hunt today.

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