Incredible Insects!

To begin our study of insects, we looked at pictures of small animals and tried to determine which ones were insects. For several of them it was hard to tell, so we looked at a number of insects encased in plastic and discovered some characteristics they had in common. We found that they all had 6 legs and 2 antennas.

We closely examined crickets and learned some surprising things! You can tell female crickets from male crickets by the egg laying tube on their abdomens. Did you know that crickets breathe through their abdomens and have their ears behind their front knees?

Going outside on our campus for an insect hunt was fun! We also found many interesting insects to observe. We took pictures, released our captives back into nature, and then we tried to identify our insects from their pictures.