We were on a mission! Walk till you spot… minibeasts! With our sharp eyes, we ticked off the minibeasts we spotted in our nature walk checklist. It was our lucky day. Dragonflies, countless ants, ladybugs, beetles, spiders and… an Asian longhorn beetle flew past us too! Not forgetting the pesky mosquitoes… no, we could not see them but YES, we felt their kisses.

Back in class, we played Bingo Bugs game and made origami ladybugs. We found out that ladybugs come in 2 spots, 7 spots, 10 spots and more! Their hard wings cover their soft back wings that are used for flying. In the IB curriculum, one of the approaches to learning is Research Skills. How do we search and find out about things? Savanna gave some good answers… find out from books, from my mummy and daddy. Facts and information can be gathered from the internet websites too, from your experiences and through our observations of the real world.

Beetles are our first focus of study – ladybugs, stag beetles, longhorn beetles, rhinoeros beetles are the class favourites. We know that an insect like the beetle has 3 body parts. Savanna practised saying these rather difficult words – head, thorax, abdomen. Upon close study, we saw that all 6 legs come from the insect’s thorax – like Rhino our pet rhinoceros beetle!

Each student selected a beetle they liked. On our activity sheet, the name of the beetle was circled. We observed drawings, photographs and drew the beetles as accurately as we could – 1 head, 1 thorax, 1 abdomen, 2 jaws, 2 feelers, wings.

The book “The Grouchy Ladybug” is on the top of our reading list, including the beautifully illustrated non-fiction book “Ladybugs” by Gail Gibbons. We love this song too, an old favourite from Sesame Street “Ladybugs Picnic”. We learned our numbers and groupings with this song – 1, 2, 3… 4, 5, 6.. We have been marching to the song “The Ants Go Marching”. The ants march one by one, then two by two and we all laugh at what the Little One does. We marched too and learned our skip counting by two – 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 Savanna students! Enjoy the songs. Till next Monday, have a great weekend!