Lesson Plan

Name: _Amanda Pfleegor

Name of Activity: __Exploring Nature-Bug Hunt

Domain Area: _Social_

Date: _____4/14/15____________________

Childrens Age: _____2_________

(Please Circle One)

Number of Children participating:____

Individual

Small Group

Large Group

Observation/Assessment: Why did you choose this activity/experience?

(Identify needs, interests, abilities of children)
I chose this activity because it is Spring and the children are learning about the weather changing, flowers
and bugs.

Vocabulary Words:
Magnifying glass
Worms
Long
Short
Little
Small
MSDE Standards Developmental Goals:
1. Show increasing self-regualtion
2. Play alongside other children
3. Seek information through observation, exploration and investigations

Learning Objectives (2 or more):

1. The children will be able to use the magnifying glasses and identify different bugs
with their friends.
2. The children will be able to perform an activity on his or her own, with minimal
assistance from the teacher.
3. The children will parallel play while doing this activity.

Materials:
Magnifying glasses
Paper
Crayon
Procedure:
I will start the lesson by reading the book Noisy Bugs by Priddy Books. This book has
many differen bugs we may see outside on our bug exploration. I will talk about where
some of them live. I will engage the children in the activity by asking them open-ended
questions like why do you think that the ants build tunnels underground? We will then go
outside with our magnifying glasses, clipboard and crayon. While outside we will search
to find bugs. We will then draw a picture of what we found. I will try and help label the
bugs as we see them
Extension Activity:
I will extend this activity by letting the children search on their own with the magnifying
glass for other things. With the intention of having them find things with the magnifying
glass, whether bugs or grass, they will utilize the tool appropriately.
Weather-Because this is an outside activity I would print vivd pictures of the different
kinds of bugs and put them around the room. I would tell the children we are going on a
bug hunt and have them find them around the room. We will then paint what we saw.

1.

Introduction/Motivation/Set Induction: How will you get the childrens

attention?

I will start the lesson by asking the children if they have seen bugs outside. I will then
start reading the book Noisy Bugs. While reading this book I will ask questions about
what kind of bugs they have seen before, what bugs they may be scared of, and what
bugs live at their home. We will then talk about magnifying glasses and how it makes
things look bigger. We will then go outside to search for bugs! I will have them follow
me to the flower pots to look for worms. I will ask if the worms are short or long, what
color they are and have them draw a worm on their paper. We will search for other bugs
and do the same thing.
2.

Nurturing/Teaching Strategies Procedures: What are the steps you will take to
conduct this activity/experience?

I will encourage the children to use the magnifying glasses to help identify the bugs and
ask questions to them as to why the bugs live under the pots, or in the grass. I will ask
them if they would want to live in the grass and what they think it feels like to be a bug.
3.

Closure: How will you know its time to end your activity?

I will end the activity by telling the children that they can look for bugs at their house and
see if they can find different kinds. The magnifying glasses are already available in the
classroom.
4.

Transition: How will you prepare the children psychologically or physically for
what will occur next?
I will prepare the children for what is happening next by having the children getting their
own magnifying glasses and lining up at the door. While doing this I will sing we are
going on a bug hunt, we are going to find a lot of them, some short and some small.
5.

Developmental Variations: What modifications will you make for an

individual(s) or group(s)?

I will bring in some pictures of bugs so the children can see what they look like in real
life and not a drawing for the visual learners. I will demonstrate how to use the
magnifying glass as well. For the children that need extra help identifying the bugs I will
give extra assistance, when needed. For the Spanish speaking children I will learn
different words for common bugs such as worm (gusano), ladybug (mariquita), spider
(araa) and ant (hormiga).
6.

Observers Comment/Suggestions ( Please sign and date):

Self-Evaluation:
Do you feel you were sufficiently prepared for the activity?
I do feel I was very prepared for this activity. Because it rained I had to change my lesson
plan around as the activity was supposed to be outside. I had the pictures on hand and put
them on the table instead of around the room and the children used the magnifying
glasses and we counted the number of legs, looked to see if the bugs had hair, and
discussed the color of the bugs.

How did the children engage/respond to the activity?

As we were reading the book the children were really interested because there was a
button they could push that buzzed. At the final page I told them the buzzing sound was
the honey bee. They each had a turn to push the button.
Do you feel this activity was developmentally-appropriate for the children?
I do feel it was developmentally-appropriate for the children although they would have
been more intrigued to have gone outside and looked for real bugs. We did go outside for
about two minutes and found a worm but it was rainging and the children were more
worried about getting wet then looking for worms.
Were the goals/objectives met?
Yes, the children used the magnifying glasses to explore for bugs while playing along
side other children. They also were able to explore on their own using the magnifying
glasses. They ended up using them for looking at each other and things around the room.
Is there anything you might change if you plan this activity again?
If I were to change this activity I may bring in a few of the harder to find bugs or plastic
bugs so the children had something to hold in their hands while doing this activity. Seeing
a piece of paper is not as fun as the real thing.

How might you use other domain areas to expand on this activity and meet additional
goals?

I may use the cognitive domain and the children identify the colors, shapes of the bugs. I
amy also have them count the number of bugs that we had. I would expand this into a
social emotional lesson plan by asking the children to pretend that they are bugs.