Bug & Insect Activities For Preschoolers – Fun & Easy Ideas
I know you are going to love these insect & bug activities for preschoolers and young children. These hands-on activities are perfect for your insect & bug learning centers.
Are you scared of bugs? Guess what? Insects don’t have to be scary and gross. Make the study of insects and bugs exciting with this collection of fun & engaging insect activities for preschoolers.
Insect Craft Activities for Preschoolers
There are many benefits of crafts for preschoolers. From caterpillars, bumble bees, butterflies, and ladybugs, your kids are going to love these fun insect craft activities.
Caterpillar Pattern Craft Activity
Get out the craft noodles and pipe cleaners. You can work on math skills, fine motor skills while making these simple caterpillar pattern activities craft.
Easy Bumble Bee Craft
Are you looking for a super simple insect craft for your kids? Get out your scrap bin of construction paper. This paper tearing craft is fun, easy to prep, and making the cute bumble bee craft will help your kids build hand strength.
This preschool bumble bee craft is also a great fine motor activity for spring. The printable craft has dark thick lines for scissors skill practice as well as opportunities for tracing and hole punching.
Ladybug Crafts for Preschoolers
This printable ladybug craft from my Insect Theme Fine Motor Craft set will help your kids work on their scissor skills as they cut out all the parts. Kids will build finger control as they trace on the dotted lines and build hand strength as they punch holes in this fun spring-themed craft activity.
Butterfly Craft for Preschoolers
Here is another printable bug craft activity that will be an extremely motivating way to help your kids work on fine motor skills. This butterfly craft will allow your kids to work on cutting practice, hole punching to build hand strength and pre-writing activities.
The printable fine motor insect craft set is are very popular, and you can check out additional printable fine motor crafts here. There are LOTS of different themes!
Bug & Insect Playdough Activities
Playdough is a great tool for hands-on learning and fine motor activities. Here are a few bug and insect playdough activities to try with your kiddos.
Bug Theme Playdough Tray
Gather a variety of materials into a divided tray. Add playdough. Then stand back and watch kids create playdough insects with this fun bug and insect theme playdough tray
Butterfly Invitation to Play
I love gathering thematic materials to create an invitation to play. Colored beads, flowers, and plastic butterflies can be used to create a fun butterfly theme play dough tray. Your kids will love this open-ended creative activity.
Bug and Insect Fine Motor Activities
Use these dot sticker printable strips for some fun and motivating bug-themed fine motor practice. Peeling and sticking stickers is a great way to work on developing pincer grasp and hand-eye coordination.
Insect Math Activities
Do you need some hands-on math activities for your bug and insect theme? Check out these ideas.
Counting and Sorting Insects Activities
Kids will enjoy sorting a variety of insects into sorting containers. Muffin tins, egg cartons, and ice cube trays can be used.
Counting Bugs for Preschoolers
You can use this Bug & Insect Number resource from my store in many different ways.
- Sort the cute lightning bugs or fireflies by color
- Use number cards for number recognition and counting activities
- Work on simple addition
- You can even use them as playdough mats with your bug playdough tray.
Caterpillar Dice Game
You can use the dot sticker printables for a fun and easy roll and cover game with your kids.
Caterpillar Pattern Activities
Kids can identify and then use pom poms to complete the pattern in this hands-on caterpillar patterning activity found in the store.
Butterfly Symmetry Activity
Using this free butterfly printable to introduce the concept of symmetry. Kids can design the wings on one half of a butterfly and use a mirror to complete the butterfly.
Butterfly Matching Puzzles
Here is another butterfly symmetry activity. Kids can match butterfly halves with this butterfly matching activity that is found in my store, and It’s a great visual discrimination activity.
Bug & Insect Ten Frame Activities & Games
Use this free ten frame printable and some fun insect stickers to make a DIY insect math activity.
Make Bug Counting & Number Books
Use fun buggy stickers to create thematic number books. These printable books can be found in my store, but you can easily make your own.
Bug & Insect Literacy Activities
Of course, you can also use bug and insect theme activities to work on early literacy skills with your kids.
Insect Theme Books
Are you looking for new books about creepy crawlies? From Eric Carle’s beloved classics to nonfiction favorites, here is a nice list of bug and insect books for kids that you can search for at your local library or bookstore.
Bumblebee Alphabet Clip Cards
Work on alphabet matching and beginning sounds with these bumblebee clip cards from the store. Kids can clip the bumble bee onto the lowercase letter that matches the pictured uppercase letter. This activity is easily adapted for different learners.
Caterpillar Name Puzzles
Use these printable caterpillar name puzzles to work on name and letter recognition. You can also use them to work on sight words, numbers, and rhyming activities.
Insect Research Lab Dramatic Play
If you like the idea of play-based learning, you are going to love this science-based dramatic play center.
Create an insect research lab dramatic play area and it will be the most popular area in your classroom. Kids can collect insect specimens, measure them and observe them. Don’t forget to provide opportunities to record their data. Your little scientists will have so much fun when you transform your dramatic play area into an entomology lab.
Additional Insect Activities for Preschoolers
If you haven’t seen enough already, here are some additional bug-theme activity ideas to supplement your insect-themed lesson plans.
Bug Collection
I found this inexpensive divided box with the fishing gear at my local Walmart. I think it’s a great bug sorting tool.
Bug Hunt
Hide the bugs around the room, and your kids can go on a bug hunt.
Design an Insect Habitat
Gather a variety of materials from silk flowers, colored beads, to egg cartons. Let your kids design a habitat for plastic insects. They can then pretend to conduct research as they observe the creepy crawly creatures with a magnifying glass and record the data.
Encourage them to use their imaginations. Maybe they will want to build a bug hotel or bug sports arena.
Bug & Insect Sensory TABLE
Let your kids catch insects in the sensory bin. Use Easter grass, plastic insects, tweezers, and clear containers. Check out this sensory materials ideas list to get even more ideas for your sensory bin.
Bug & Insect Art Activity
Want to add a buggy twist to an art activity? Purchase some fly watters at the dollar store, and your kids can use them for an insect art activity.
Here are a few additional ideas from around the web.
- Insect Videos – Primary theme park has compiled some videos that are great for kids.
- Insect Themed Yoga – Promote movement and body awareness with these yoga poses by Pink Oatmeal
- Build-a-Bug Creative Activity – Set up a creative invitation to play from Paper and Glue.
- Butterfly Life Cycle Video – A short education video by Hello Miss V.
- Ladybug Life Cycle Video – An amazing video by the Dodo
I hope that you and your kids have fun with these insect activities for preschoolers. Do you have additional ideas for a bug & insect theme activities? I would love to hear about them!
Additional Insect Activities in the Store
Are you looking for additional bug-themed activities for your kids? Check out the following resources in my store.
Purchase The Insect Themed Activities On TPT
Do you prefer to shop at Teachers Pay Teachers? You can also purchase the bug theme printables in my TPT Store.