Type

Activity Descriptions

supplies

Badge

At home

• Observe bugs wherever possible and learn about their homes.
• Make a butterfly feeder by cutting holes in a container lid, putting string through the holes and hanging the plate from a tree. Leave fruit on the feeder and see what other bugs you may attract, not just butterflies.
• Identify bugs found in your own home or yard.
• Search the internet for videos of bugs at work including spiders spinning webs, ants forming ant hills and caterpillars transforming into butterflies.
• Watch a spider make a web.

Bug

Snack

Discussion During Snack

What is your favorite bug?

If you were a bug, what would you be?

Can you list more than 10 bugs?

Bug jokes:

o What did one cockroach say to the other? You bug me.

o What do you get when you cross a bee and a cow? A humburger.

o What do you get when you cross a pig with a centipede? Bacon and legs.

o What goes snap, crackle, fizz? A firefly with a short circuit.

o What creature is smarter than a talking parrot? A spelling bee.

o What is the biggest ant in the world? Ant-artica.

What are examples of bugs’ homes? (cocoons, spider web, chrysalis, ant farm)

What would it be like to live in each of the types of bug homes?

Which bugs have you seen in your own home?

Which bugs have you seen in your own yard?

Learn some vocabulary words. “Entomology” means the study of bugs. “Entomologists” study

bugs. “Lepidopterist” is an entomologist who studies butterflies. An “apiologist” studies honeybees. 

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Bug

Craft (15 min)

Draw a Bug

Find a book or other resource that has information about insects and bugs that is easy to share with the girls

Bugs Are Insects by Anne Rockwell and Steve Jenkins

Insects from Eyewitness Books

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect

Big Book of Bugs from DK Publishing

1. Read a book to introduce girls to bugs and insects.

2. Individually or in small groups, ask girls to draw their favorite insect and include all they know about that insect (don’t worry about whether or not the information is 100% correct; the idea is to get girls thinking about bugs!).

3. Girl can include the following information on their posters:

Where the bug lives

How long it lives

What it eats

What is good about this bug

What is not so good about this bug

Its enemies

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Bug Book

Large paper or poster board

markers and crayons

Bug 1

craft

Yarn Bug

Have girls color the toe nails on the feet.  They don’t need to color any of the rest of it, because it is covered up.

Then cut out the feet.

Cut a piece of yarn in the color selected 6 -8 inches. Wrap yarn around cardboard 100 times (theydon’t need to do that many time, it just makes it fuller). With the piece of yarn you cut, tie the yarn together tightlyin the middle on one side of the cardboard/disc. Turn cardboard/disc over and cut the yarn down the middle toremove from cardboard/disc.

Hot glue egg carton portion, bottom up to the feet, positioning to the back of the feet so the toes will show. Gluethe yarn portion to egg carton. Glue on eyes. You can add some sort of decoration to the top of the head if you like.

Other Yarn Bug ideas can be found on www.makingfriends.com 

Yarn Feet pattern

Scissors

Yarn

3 1/2 x 3 1/2 piece heavy cardboard

Bug 2

Craft

Coffee Filter Butterflies

Cover your table with a reusable plastic tablecloth and place newspapers under the filter before spraying with water to absorb the water and speed up drying time.

Have the girls use colored markers and draw on the coffee filter. Lightly spray water over the coffee filter. The colors will run and blend together causing a rainbow effect. Girl will be able to see the many different colors run from the black or brown marker. You will want to be sure and “test” the markers before doing this activity with the girls. Allow the filters to dry by hanging up on a string with clothespins. After dry pull the center together with a pipe cleaner and fan out the edges to resemble butterfly wings. Leave a short piece at one end to fold into antennas. This can be used as a pluralism activity. Discuss how the patterns are all different, but yet they are all the same because they belong to the "butterfly family".

Coffee filters

Plastic tablecloth

Spray bottle

Markers

Bug 2

Craft

Jumping Spider

Materials: thread spool, long rubber bands, marker, 8 black pipe cleaners.

Draw a face on the side of the spool. Slide pipe cleaners thru spool so you have one inch of pipe cleaner on top. Bend pipe cleaners at top and bottom to be flush with spool. Bend bottom ones again at knees.

Loop rubber band around the pipe cleaner on the spiders head. Knot several rubber bands together to elongate if necessary.

thread spool, long rubber bands, marker, 8 black pipe cleaners

Bug 2

Craft (15 min)

Crafty Bugs

1. Decorate a paper plate with markers or paint to make it look like the body of a spider or any other bug that girls want to create.

2. Draw eyes or make them by attaching googly eyes or covering dots of glue in glitter.

3. Cut pipe cleaners in half to make six, eight (or more!) legs.

4. Attach the legs to the plate.

5. Bend them to make the bug stand.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Paper plates (one per girl)

Pipe cleaners

Glue

Googly eyes or pens

Optional: Glitter and other decorative items

Bug 2

Craft (20 min)

Make a Butterfly Chrysalis.

1. Explain to girls that butterflies start out as caterpillars. Caterpillars find a twig or leaf on which to form a chrysalis, which is similar to a cocoon. After the caterpillars form the chrysalis, they turn into butterflies and emerge from the chrysalis.

2. Have girls make a model of a butterfly chrysalis. First, girls should rip the tissue paper into small pieces (approximately 2 square inches each). Then, blow up balloons and tie them off. Using the paintbrush, place a piece of tissue paper on the blown up balloon and secure it with an ample amount of glue. The entire piece of tissue paper should be covered in glue. Continue to apply tissue paper in this method until the whole balloon is covered in at least one (preferably more) layer of paper. When the whole balloon is covered, apply another thick layer of glue.

3. Place the balloons on wax paper to dry. When the meeting concludes, send balloons home with girls. Instruct them to place balloons on wax paper at home until they finish drying (at least 24 hours). When balloons are completely dry, girls should carefully cut a small hole near the knot at the top of the balloon to let air out slowly. If a large hole is cut, air will release too quickly and chrysalis may break. Tissue paper and dried glue form a hollow globe similar to a chrysalis.

4. For girls with latex sensitivities or for facilities that do not permit latex materials, an alternative would be to use two styrofoam cups, plastic bowls, or other non-stick surfaces as the mold for the chrysalis.

After the two halves have dried, the chrysalis parts can be gently removed from the mold and taped together with clear tape.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Check for latex allergies

One small balloon (4–6 inches) per girl

Paint brushes

Glue

Multicolored tissue paper

Wax paper for drying

Optional: example chrysalis and/or cocoon pictures or insect guides with illustrations

Bug 4

Bee Mask

Bee mask printouts

Brownies Bee Mask.pdf

scissors

tape

Butterfly wrist bands

butterfly printout

Brownies Butterfly Wrist puppet.pdf

scissors

tape

Game (10 min)

Spider Web Game

1. Girls should stand in a circle and loosely tie the end of their ball of yarn around their waist.

2. Taking turns, girls throw their ball of yarn across the circle to another girl. That girl wraps the yarn around herself once and throws it to a different girl.

3. When all balls of yarn are gone, discuss with girls that interwoven yarn is similar to a spider’s web. Talk about how spiders spin webs in order to catch food.

4. Either allow girls to untangle themselves, or cut through the circle in several spots with a scissors. Save yarn pieces for other crafts or finger knitting.

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Small ball of yarn (approximately the size of a golf ball) for each girl

Scissors

Bug 4

Game (20 min)

Bugs in Action

1. Head outside and search for bugs.

2. Have the girls look for three different bugs in the area, for example, an ant carrying food, a beetle chewing on a leaf and a roly-poly (sow bug) on a porch.

3. Have the girls identify the bugs and try to find out what they are doing and why.

4. Have the girls share with one another the fun things they have learned.

What is cool about bugs?

What do bugs do?

What bugs are faster than others?

From: Girl Scouts River Valleys

Determine an outside area where girls can safely observe bugs

Optional: Magnifying glasses to look at bugs more closely

Optional: printout of bug censusBrownies Bug Census.pdf

Bug 5 or 3