Are you looking for a fun spring theme for your preschool class? Insects are always a hit! Your preschoolers will love learning all about bugs with these insect theme preschool activities. You can use these activity ideas to put together an entire week (or two!) of themed learning that your preschoolers will love!
The Benefits of Themed Learning in Preschool
Themed learning is such a wonderful tool for the preschool setting! There are many reasons why so many preschool educators use weekly or monthly themes in their classrooms:
- Practice Relevant Vocabulary: Young preschoolers are working hard to build their expressive and receptive vocabulary! Themed activities can give students the opportunity to learn new vocabulary and then practice it over the course of a unit.
- Learn with Engaging Activities: Themed activities can add engagement to skill practice in your classroom. A fresh theme can breathe new life into letter and number practice in your classroom.
- Embrace Seasonal Fun: Finally, themes are fun! They are a great way to bring some seasonal excitement to your classroom while still focusing on important learning activities.
6 Insect Theme Preschool Activities
It can be overwhelming to plan a themed unit for preschool because there are so many activities to choose from! For this post, I wanted to share some of my favorite things to include in an insect unit for preschool. My hope is that this can save you some planning time and give you a jumping-off point for your lesson planning. (You can save even more time with the resource I share at the end of this post!)
1. Insect Anchor Chart
It’s helpful to start a themed unit by activating prior knowledge. This will help your preschoolers make the most of the learning activities in the unit.
For an insect unit, this could be an “All About Insects” anchor chart that holds different facts that your preschoolers already know. This gives you a chance to see the type of vocabulary and knowledge that your students already have. Then, as you discuss insects throughout the unit, you can add new learning to the anchor chart. This can be a helpful display as your students learn all about insects! You can refer back to what you’ve written as you work on additional insect activities together as a class.
2. Insect Read Alouds
Once you’ve had a chance to introduce insects to your students, you can use read-alouds to continue this discussion. Junebug: No Life Too Small by Nicole Daniels is a great book for a preschool read aloud! It introduces students to a variety of insects and creatures that students might encounter on the playground. June is a great example of how to treat these creatures!
After spending time with engaging read-alouds and poems, students can respond to the text with a variety of activities. For example, they could use illustrated retelling cards to put the story events in order. This is such a great way for preschoolers to practice their oral communication skills!
3. STEM Activities
There are so many interesting characteristics of insects that preschoolers can explore through STEM activities. For example, students can explore camouflage by trying to find a variety of colored pom poms among crumpled green tissue paper. This helps them understand how important camouflage can be for insects.
Another fun experiment is to see what ants like to eat. Students can place different food items on the ground near common areas of ant activity. You can choose something sweet, sour, salty, and spicy, then see which items the ants are attracted to. Students can draw what happens on their recording sheets.
4. Insect Theme Math Centers
You can continue to have insect fun throughout your daily learning routine by using themed activities for your math centers. These engaging insect math activities will help students practice important number sense skills through independent practice.
For example, students can choose a ten frame card, count the number of flowers, and then find that number on their Count and Dab worksheet. Once they’ve found the correct number, they can dab it with a dot marker.
Students can also practice counting with this bug jar activity. They will place two types of insect cards onto the jar counting mat. Then, they will count the number of each bug and write the number on their recording sheet. They will also count the total number of bugs and record that number. This can help students practice one-to-one correspondence and number formation with one engaging activity!
5. Play Dough Mats
A play dough station is another great option for an insect unit! These play dough mats feature different insects that students can build using play dough. A students pinch, roll, and shape the play dough, they are building their hand strength and improving their coordination. This is a fun way to get students excited about fine motor practice!
6. Insect Crafts
You can celebrate everything you’ve learned during your insect unit with hands-on craft projects. Students will love creating butterflies and bees to decorate the classroom and bulletin board. In addition to fine motor practice, crafts also help young preschoolers learn how to use school tools safely. Assembling the crafts also requires students to follow step-by-step directions, which is another helpful skill for preschoolers to develop.
Printable Insect Unit for Preschool
All of the activities mentioned in this post (and many more!) are included in one easy-to-download set of insect activities for preschool. You can use these activities to put together a two-week insect unit for your preschoolers. The materials in this unit are standards-based, hands-on, engaging, and developmentally appropriate for students in a preschool, transitional kindergarten, or homeschool setting.
If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this set of insect activities, you can find it in my TPT store.
Save These Preschool Insect Theme Activities
Be sure to save this post if you’d like to come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite board of preschool ideas on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find this post when you’re looking for insect theme activities for preschool. You might also like these frog lesson plans for another spring unit!
