Free Printable Bugs, Insects, Spiders Lesson Plans Activities

Spring is in the air--time for insects to make their appearance. Do you like insects and spiders or do they just bug you? Whether you're a hexapoda aficionado (bug lover) or a you have a arachnophobia, it's important to understand insects and spiders and their place in the environment. Here are free printable insects activities and bugs lesson plans.

Orkin (yes, the bug people) has a beautifully illustrated free printable Insect Identification booklet. This free printable guide to insects features detailed images of bugs, plus information on bug habits and habitats. This will help identify safe and dangerous insects in the home, yard and environment. There are free printable insects lesson plans. Here's a free printable insects booklet with bug coloring pages, games, puzzles, experiments and crafts.

The Orkin Insect Zoo at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History offers free printable lesson plans spiders, butterflies and insects . Explore caterpillars, butterflies and cocoons, spiders and spider webs. Print coloring pages of caterpillars, butterflies, ladybugs, bees, ants, dragonflies, moths, grasshoppers, beetles, praying mantis, mosquitoes, scorpions, flies, termites and fireflies or lightning bugs.

Spiders are not insects, but arachnids. Free Printable Coloring pages has nearly 50 insects and spiders coloring pages. Click this link for beautifully detailed butterfly coloring pages. Each butterfly species is labeled. Images look like stained glass windows coloring pages. Use them for science lessons on insects, butterflies, spring, metamorphosis or new life.

Coloring Castle has free printable coloring pages of bees and butterflies, There are also free printable ladybug coloring pages and lesson plans of a ladybugs 100 chart and a numbers 1-10 pyramid. Edupics has over 100 free printable insects coloring pages and 41 butterflies coloring pages.

 

Free Printable Chinese New Year Crafts and Lesson Plans on China

Chinese New Year begins in late January or early February on the western calendar. Here are free printable activities to celebrate this fun cultural experience. There are lantern festival activities too. 

Primary Games has twelve free printable Chinese New Year coloring pages featuring each of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac along with their Chinese symbol. There are the Rat, Dog, Tiger,

Dragon, Horse, Ox, Rabbit, Boar, Sheep, Snake, Rooster and Monkey.

Activity Village offers a plethora of free printable Chinese New Year crafts, games, puzzles, calendars, greeting cards, jigsaw, stories and more. 

DLTK has gobs of cute Chinese New Year coloring pages, zodiac activities, animal masks,

dragon masks and lesson plans on China. Animal Jr. has twelve more free printable coloring pages for each animal of the Chinese new year, plus more masks to print.

Apples 4 the Teacher has fifteen free printable Chinese New Year crafts and coloring pages, including animals of the Zodiac, a map of China and the Chinese flag to color. First-School has one of the very best organized and cross-referenced educational activities and free printables websites you will find. Teachers, parents, homeschoolers, religious educators, Sunday school teachers should bookmark First-School and visit frequently. For Chinese New Year, FirstSchool has free printable CNY lantern crafts, Chinese zodiac coloring pages, math games, history

and literature lessons and so much more.

Greet each other with Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Animal Classification Bingo Game: Animal sorting game for preschool science Lesson Plans

Interactive Animal Classification and Habitat Bingo Game for Elementary Science Class As a former Montessori teacher and homeschool mom, I'm always looking for hands-on, interactive ways to teach concepts. To explore animal classification, habitats and elementary life science and biology, I made up an animal sorting or bingo game. My children have always owned an impressive collection of stuffed and plastic animals. I put their toy animal collection to use in preschool and elementary science lesson plans. You can easily play this game with a classroom of children, or use in science learning centers. 

First, collect stuffed animals, toy animals, plastic animals and even magazines with pictures of animals. Use your National Geographic, Big Back Yard and Ranger Rick magazines. Next, make a large Bingo board on the floor with masking tape. Each square should be about 8x12 inches large. Make large signs from recycled cardboard for each category on the bingo board.

  If you are studying animal classification, you will make categories labeled:

  MAMMAL

  BIRD

  FISH

  REPTILE

  AMPHIBIAN

  INSECT

  If you are studying habitats or biomes in science, list the biomes you are exploring

  DESERT

  RAINFOREST

  EASTERN WOODLAND

  OCEAN

  WETLAND MARSH

  POND  

  SAVANNAH GRASSLAND

  Play animal bingo in one of several ways. Call out a category and let students come up and select a toy animal to place in one of the boxes under the category. You can also give each child a blank bingo sheet. For each animal in his collection, he writes a small label card. If the animal is called, he places it the correct category. You might also call categories and let him choose which, if any of the animals he has, to put in the category. The last way to play this animal bingo game (and also the most abstract and least hands-on) is to pass out animal word cards and play it that way. My students and children prefer sorting their toy animals. It was pretty cute to see Pooh bear sitting in the WOODLAND and Minnie Mouse in the MAMMAL category. This game works well for group instruction; students learn from each other and great discussion ensues.

Habitat Science Tubs and Preschool Learning Center Activities

Preschool and Elementary Science Learning Center Ideas for Habitat Study Learning occurs best when it's interactive. Bring hands-on, cross-curricular activities to every preschool classroom learning center. Studying different countries, cultures or habitats in your classroom? Here are hands-on science center activities. 

Montessori type learning centers focus on hands-on child-led mastery learning, individual work stations and play as work activities. Activities in learning centers aim for mastery learning through exploration and task completion. Montessori science learning centers are also called sensory or sensorial learning areas. Here's a system for portable exploratory science tubs with task-oriented science experiments and activities for mastery learning.

Montessori learning centers are organized, precise and minimal. Instead of a jumble of toys, there are specific ordered learning materials with task-oriented goals. Children work in individual work stations instead of desks or tables. These are usually portable mats rolled out on the floor. Portable unit-based science tubs work well. Materials in science tubs may be preset on stationary learning mats and children rotate through learning centers to complete activities. Or children may select science tubs, bring them to their mat work stations where they interact with materials to accomplish educational tasks.

To create exploratory science tubs, you'll need small plastic boxes with lids, baskets and different science unit materials. Stacking boxes or drawers in a rolling cart work well too. You might also use zippered plastic bags for individual science units. You will arrange materials by content area. When you're studying a particular content area, you'll remove materials from drawer or box and place in baskets. This makes learning materials more appealing and approachable.

Themes for exploratory science tubs include: magnets, matters, animal classification, mammals, reptiles, air, water, weather, measurement, polymers, plants, rocks and minerals, chemistry, seeds and seed carriers, feathers, electricity, atoms, food, bubbles, bugs, spiders, electronics. Place materials to explore in science tubs. Add several related follow up tasks for mastery learning--flashcards, worksheets, matching games. Children can do mastery learning tasks in science journals for follow up.

Make available tools for exploratory science: microscope, slides, magnifying glass, tweezers, magnifying box, telescope, gram balance scale, ruler, protractor, measuring tape. On the top surface of the plastic science tubs shelf, draw outlines of tools so children know where to place tools when finished. You could also make a pegboard for them to hang tools. Children perform exploratory science tasks and then return materials to original places so other children can use them

The Cove Dolphin Slaughter Documentary and other Ecology movies for Earth Month

Earth Day, formerly called Arbor Day, is celebrated on April 22. Spring manifests itself in a big way in April, so the entire month has come to be known as Earth Month. During this month, you can learn more about geology and earth science with these environmental films and movies about ecology. Explore earth-safe and not-so-earth-safe practices. Discover how local habits have global impacts.

"Crude: The Real Price of Oil" (2009): In "Crude" filmmaker Joe Berlinger profiles the "Amazon Chernobyl" case, in which 30,000 indigenous Ecuadorean Rain Forest inhabitants took on oil mogul, Chevron. This film won several dozen awards including Best Green Film and Best Documentary. This film resonates with oil spill victims and those who oppose Big Oil.

"The Cove" Louie Psihoyos goes behind-the-scenes with a camera team to uncover atrocities wrought by the Japanese fishing industry. Psihoyos captures rare, secret footage of dolphin slaughter and harmful mercury poisoning oceans, waterways and the ecosystem. The Cove won an Oscar for Best Documentary and the Sundance Film Festival Audience Award. Parents and teachers should view "The Cove" before showing the film to children. Graphic scenes of dolphin slaughter may be too disturbing for children under 12.

"Blackfish" This documentary exposed abuse of orca "killer whales" at SeaWorld and other animal amusement parts. It tells the story of Tilikum, a captive orca whale who killed his trainer. 

"Soylent Green" (1973): In the style of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," Richard Fleischer's science fiction thriller explores a future world in which the population explosion is depleting all the world's food sources. Scientists discover a mysterious miracle food and call it "soylent green." No one knows what it's made from, nor cares so long as it fills hungry bellies. Then a reporter discovers the horrible truth.

"No Impact Man" (2009): This chronicles a family that transitions from a fast-paced New York City consumer lifestyle to become the perfect green family. Their goal is to leave zero carbon footprint and no environmental impact for one year. Colin Beaven is the "No Impact Man."

"Dirty Business: Clean Coal and the Battle for our Energy Future" (2009): In this documentary film, the Center for Investigative Reporting demonstrates the dangers inherent in a world addicted to coal power.

Free Printable Curious George Lesson Plans

Free Printable Curious George Lesson Plans and Party Activities Here are free printable spelling, reading, math and writing lessons, plus coloring pages all about our favorite little monkey, Curious George! These free printable activities are based on the original vintage Curious George books from my childhood, by H.A.Rey Margaret Rey! You can even print an entire Curious George party planner with decorations, invitations, coloring, crafts, games and activities,too! Click here

Free Printable Animal Habitat Lesson Plans

Parents, are you homeschooling your kids or considering homeschool? Then you'll want to avail yourself of the many free printable lesson plans and worksheets online. Maybe you're needing resources for science homework help? Here are free printable animal classification charts, worksheets and taxonomy charts and diagrams to use for lesson plans. Animal classification or taxonomy, is a system of organizing creatures according to a hierarchy. It originated in Carolus Linnaeus's Systema Naturae. Creatures are organized by Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species (abbreviated KPCOFGS in science classes). Here are free printable animal

classification lesson plans and activities.

Printable Kids Worksheets has free printable animal life science worksheets, charts and diagrams.

Life science subjects include: Animal Ecosystems, Animal Vertebrate, Birds, Camouflage, Carnivores,

Herbivores, and Omnivores, Dinosaur, Food Chain, Mammals and Reptiles. Tetu Teacher at Weebly

has a free printable animal classification booklet filled with taxonomy charts and diagrams. Most are

these life science lesson plans are for grades 2-5. Here are colorful free printable animal taxonomy

lesson plans featuring the KPCOFGS system for grades preschool to third. Students learn animal

classification and other animal life science activities.

TSL Books has several free printable animal classification worksheets. Click around for other free

printable life science lesson plans to print. Here's a site that offers some printable taxonomy charts

and diagrams for taxonomy that are free. This blog has a collection of free printable animal

classification worksheets culled from around the web.

Use charts and diagrams to teach students how animal body coverings determine what animal group

the species belongs to. Students learn about animal habitats, biomes, how animals adapt to their

environment, how they live, eat, stay warm and reproduce. Students will explore endothermic (warmblooded) and ectothermic (cold-blooded) animals. Activities include lessons plans, resources, games,

coloring pages, activities, writing response lessons, puzzles, worksheets, vocabulary lists, word sort

Free Printable Habitat Dioramas- Science Activities

For hands-on science lesson plans, you can't beat habitat dioramas. Students explore concepts interactively, making 3-D scenes. Shoebox dioramas (scenes set up inside boxes tilted on their sides) help students visualize concepts. Diorama activities work very well for literature, social studies, animal habitats and life science lesson plans. Use animal habitats dioramas in life science lesson plans to help students understand how creatures interact with their environment.

Animal habitat dioramas can be made with found objects and recycled trash. Or here are free printable animal habitat dioramas from Crayola. Use these animal habitat coloring pages in hands-on science lesson plans. Printable dioramas give high success and help special needs and easily frustrated students create science projects they feel proud of.

The American Museum of Natural History has free printable animal habitat dioramas and science activities for different biomes. Look for "make it" and "coloring pages" links. From there, print backgrounds and creatures. Check out printable games and puzzles and lesson plans, too.

Exploring nature has
free printable animal habitats coloring pages. Students can color and cut out and arrange in 3D shoebox dioramas. Or that could be the backdrop and they could glue plastic animals and plants in the shoebox base.

First Palette has free printable dioramas: Habitats or biomes include coral reef, African savanna, polar biomes, rainforest and Paleolithic dinosaur habitats. Free printable animal coloring pages are available at First Palette too. There are insects, mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians in different biomes. Have kids color and place in the proper environment. This teaches sorting, classifying and symbiotic relationships. Have kids explore KPCOFGS--kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species--concepts too.