We're Going Buggy!

It's fall! That wonderful time of the year when bugs come out to play, well at least some of my favorite bugs anyway.  The kids have had a blast this year catching HUGE grass hoppers and little crickets.  Now they enjoy hunting down giant praying mantis bugs.

I'm glad my children are not afraid of nature! I've always taken them outside and let them dig in the dirt and just enjoy nature.  Letting them explore all there is around them to explore, safely.  They will rescue worms from the side walk so they don't die, they will collect rolly polly bugs and have rolly polly races across the back patio.  My daughter loves to collect the most gigantic grass hoppers she can find and take them to school to show all of her friends.

They will hunt down locust shells, and living locust too! Mainly my daughter loves to chase her terrified father around with them, but we won't discuss his screams of terror and his pleadings for mercy from his very tricky daughter ,ahahaha!!!! No idea where she gets it from .... NONE.

They would catch caterpillars if we could find any, but they have been far and few between this year.

My kids aren't mean to bugs thankfully.  They don't hurt them, well there was a moment when the kids didn't understand the PROPER method of catching fire flies! They thought when you "cupped" them in your hand....that you just smacked your hands together...that made for some dead fire flies, and glowy hands, and sad kids. Oops.  They finally got it figured out though, after they frightened the population of fire flies away from our yard!

For the most part my kids are kind to bugs and realize they serve a purpose, they respect them.  If there is a spider in the house though they will kill it without hesitation.  If they see one outside, they leave it alone or simply move it with a leaf or a stick. 

While we were outside the other day we found a VERY large praying mantis. The kids hadn't seen one quite the large before.  They were gently petting her and she was very nice and just hung out so we could pet her.  We made sure she got moved over to the grassy area, very gently.

One of my sons reaching out to gently pet the praying mantis and telling her how cool she was.

This morning, I saw a walking stick, or stick bug.  I haven't seen one of them in literally YEARS! Plus I had never seen one as big as this one was! He was pretty good sized.  The kids thought it was really cool that it was a bug that looked like a stick.  Honestly, yes it is pretty cool!

Can you guess which end is up?

As long as bugs stay out of my house, we're good.  You invade my home, You are going DOWN DOWN DOWN! I will not hesitate to call in an exterminator to exterminate your little antennae!

So now that it isn't so horribly hot, get outside and dig up some bugs! A little dirt won't hurt, it's fun to learn about nature. Last year we did a science experiment where we sat an apple outside and let nature "take it's course" to see what would happen to the apple.  We left it sitting right on the ground. We checked on it every day to see what it was doing.  The kids thought this was a really cool experiment.  We watched what the weather did to the apple, what animals did to it, what bugs did to it and how it looked each day. The kids saw the bees and ants that loved the apple and we talked about each of the insects.  It was a really good learning process for them!

It's good for our children to understand, respect, and appreciate nature.  Even the smallest members of nature, the bugs!

Mae