Digging the old vege patch

We started digging the old vege patch today, as it might well become our temporary sandpit while the new classroom is being built. We hoped it might yield a few interesting bugs as we dug...

Hiding in the old vege patch...

Today's downpours have provided us with bugs appearing from the undergrowth, and also from the soil in the old vege patch: snails, worms, slaters, a caterpillar, ants, a click beetle... We were lucky to have most of the afternoon rain-free, as it really poured just after school!

Searching in the rain

We talked about the rainy afternoon as we ate lunch: lots of bugs like the damp conditions, especially the ones that move by slithering and sliding. So we were hopeful that some would come out for us. We only went out for about 10 minutes, to avoid getting soaked, but managed to find several snails and 2 skinks in that time.

Drawing bugs

As we couldn't stay it in the rain too long, we took the opportunity to draw and write about the bugs we had found, either today, or previously. We drew from observation, from memory, from our bug cards, or from library books, and added notes as we went along. We thought about habits, habitats, observations, and facts we could share.

Sharing ideas

Sharing ideas

Searching the sandpit

Our challenge today was two-fold: see what bugs we could find in the sandpit, and at the same time, start to empty it out onto the vegetable garden in preparation of the playground move.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately!) we found NO bugs in the sandpit, but the children worked really hard at shifting the sand, in bendy buckets, mini wheelbarrows, ice cream containers, and moved enough to make a good layer on the vegetable garden, which will hopefully help to break up the clay soil there.

Great work, team!

After the rain

After a good amount of rain this week, we were hopeful of finding a variety of bugs around school, and we were right! Two skinks, a huhu beetle, a flying ant, and what we think is a baby slater. Plus two mystery bugs that we are yet to identify: if you recognize either, please let us know!

This little bug had a silvery back and was found on a web, but we don't know whether it made the web, or was caught on it...

A new find!

Today we found two skinks!

We realized how good they were at camouflaging themselves when we wanted to take photos: They hid so well in the mini habitats we had made for them in our boxes...

Dry conditions

After a few dry days, the bugs that prefer shady, damp places were much harder to find, and between us we only found three slaters, one snail, one spider and a few ants. 

We hoped the little shower of rain we had would bring them out, but it wasn't quite wet enough.

Today's finds...

Can you spot the centipede?

We found lots of worms... So hopefully that means we have great soil at school!

Finding out about our bugs

Today, after we had been on our bug hunt, we spent some time checking through our bug cards to make sure we had identified our bugs correctly.

Then we got out our big pile of library books and had a chance to have a browse, to see what sort of information the books gave us, to see what sort of creatures we might come across, and to think about how we might find out some new things about our own bugs.

Searching skills

Another sunny afternoon searching for bugs. We had a think about the best places for searching, from last week: where did we find different kinds of bug or beast? Several groups decided to do a bit of digging, and we found a lot of worms! Snails and slaters liked shady places, and ants seemed to like to live under rocks.

After our search, we had a go at matching our bugs with named picture cards, and we are collecting a pile of library books, plus of course Internet access, to help us start learning about our creatures' needs and habits.