I feel like even if your kiddo didn't get a single color matched correctly, this would still be a win. He would applaud himself and say "did it!" Because I always excitedly said, "you did it!" Sticking the sticker to the circles was kind of tricky for him too so a lot of times I would hold it up and let him "push" the sticker on and he even enjoyed just doing that. I was so surprised with how well he did on this and how excited he got when he matched the colors correctly. Since peeling the stickers off is still a bit of a challenge for Kade at this age, I would peel them off for him, hand them to him telling him the color and he would stick it to the matching color. I cut some eyes out of white paper and some antennae out of black and then used a sharpie to add the rest! I cut some circles out of colored paper and laminated them partly so that the stickers could easily be moved around and I could save this and use it again, and partly because I miss the laminating part of being a teacher so much it hurts. Matching colored dot stickers or post-it notes ) He was excited to name the bugs he knew/recognized and find the matching bugs on the puzzle. Initially, Kade got his activities confused and wanted to stick the puzzle pieces onto our contact butterfly that we played with the day before. I now had 5 puzzle pieces to fit into the missing cut-outs. I then used my hot glue gun to glue the top piece of cardboard (which now had holes/openings from where I cut the puzzles pieces out of) down on to the bottom piece with the bugs peeking through the cut-outs. I used a box cutter to cut out the "puzzle pieces" from the cardboard and then put packaging tape tightly all around them so they were more sturdy and protected. The hardest part was trying to make sure they were lined up/glued onto the same area of cardboard so when I cut them out, the holes would be in the right place. I taped one set onto one piece of cardboard (using packaging tape so that they were totally covered and protected), and then used a glue stick to glue the other set of bugs on to the other piece. I cut up a box that I had, printed out 2 copies of the bugs and cut out the ones I wanted to use. I accidentally got a little crafty with this one. Instead, he enjoyed picking one single strand of spaghetti out at a time and gently placing it into his bug jar. This is one of my favorite things about planning activities like this for Kade- he never does what I expect him to. I was expecting him to dig in with both hands and enjoy squishing it between his fingers. I just added the bugs, his bug jar, and some fine motor tweezers for him to play with. Also note that it only lasts a few days before it will start to get moldy so be sure to take the bugs and everything out and dispose of it before it gets to that point. It really only needs about an hour to dry (to avoid the food coloring coming off on sweaty little hands), but I just so happened to do this after dinner so I just left it out over night. I laid it out on a big cutting board to dry. I cooked the spaghetti, rinsed it in cold water, then mixed in drops of green food coloring until it was the desired color. Insects provide a vastly overlooked - and often times misunderstood - window into our fragile ecosystem that involves the perfect balance of millions of individual components. All Rice.This was a super fun, ok-to-taste sensory play activity for Kade. There are over 1 million identified species of insects and spiders in the world with many more still awaiting discovery. Otherwise a bag with maggots will mean it's been on the shelf over 1-2 month. If you open a bag with no maggots or bugs that means the bag is fresh and a new crop.
You do not need to waste or throw away good rice because of those.
Once you cook the rice, it will kill all insects and what ever, will become protein. When you wash it, it's real easy, ALL THE BUGS WILL FLOAT UP, just rinse like 3 times. Unlike wheat (bread, pasta) which also cannot be stored at room temperature for long either, 1-2 months is max.Īt room Temperature the larvae are in the rice, and will hatch, and become maggots, then they will escape the bag somehow and crawl around as maggots outside and become a cocoon and hatch into mini-moths and die. Everyone in Asia knows, you cannot store rice for long (over 1-2 months) at room temperature.