Weekly Activities. Minibeast Home

Book of the week

Mad About Minibeasts by Giles Andreae and David Wojtowycz.

Synopsis

Little ones will love joining in with all the noisy sound words and looking at the colourful pictures, as they discover all sorts of minibeasts. From slithery snails and buzzing bees, to wriggly worms and munching caterpillars! Each page introduces a different animal, with a short read-aloud rhyme.

"Simple, cheerful and humorous rhymes ... great fun to read together, and also makes a good introduction to learning about the world around us" - Booktrust.

Weekly Activities

We started off by talking about different types of minibeasts and thinking of some examples e.g. spiders, beetles, snails, worms, woodlice etc. and talking about how they are invertebrates (creatures without backbones or any other bones). We went on to explain that this week we will be making a special type of home for the minibeasts. We discussed why they might need to find a home - a safe place to live, to hide from predators (e.g. toads, birds) or to look after their young.

We encouraged the children to find some natural resources (e.g. dry leaves, twigs, pinecones) to help build the home, which needed to be divided into different sections and crammed with different materials to help create warm and dry spaces.

We went through what resources were required to build the home - small wooden planks and squares of wood which needed to be cut to size using a hand saw. We also used an electric drill to drill holes in the wood and a screwdriver to screw in the screws which would hold the whole thing together. We talked about tool safety when using the different tools then involved the children in every aspect of making the home. Once finished we then began filling it with all the different things the minibeasts needed - sheep's wool, twigs, air bricks, cardboard, pinecones, leaves, bamboo, toilet roll tubes etc.

Aims and Objectives

Understand the need to respect and care for the natural environment and all living things
Investigate different types of minibeasts
Explore natural materials
Develop hand-eye co-ordination when using tools
Learn about tool safety

Home Activity

Try these minibeast activities and crafts from the Woodland Trust with your children. They’re a wonderful way to spend time together and an opportunity to help youngsters learn about woodland wildlife.

They include the following fun activities:-