Learning About Wasps!
My seven-year-old son, Henry, had a cool homework assignment that he did an amazing job on that he wanted me to share on the blog! So here it is!
Henry’s first grade class had a homework project to go along with their unit on insects. They were instructed to make an insect out of “anything” they wanted. Henry told me that he wanted to make a wasp .. and he wanted to make it out of paper.
He started with a yellow piece of paper, which he crumbled up and then made some markings on it with a black Sharpie. This became the abdomen. Then he got a black piece of paper and crumbled it up too. He found some yellow sticky tabs and placed those on the black crumpled paper. This became the thorax. Henry taped the “abdomen” and the “thorax” together … being quite liberal with the tape. Next he got another piece of black paper and started making cuts in it. He then took a second piece of yellow paper and crumpled it into a ball and placed it in the center the black paper with holes. This made the head … which he taped onto the thorax (again, no shortage of tape). He added white paper wings (including drawn in details), sparkly gold pipe cleaner antennae, 2 google eyes (we just happened to have some in yellow & black), and 6 toothpick legs.
Part of the assignment was to learn more about the insect and write a short report on the findings. We found a great kid-friendly site to get the research done … PestWorld for Kids. The site has lots of information and ideas for lesson plans, science projects, and even games. From the site we learned …
- There are 4000 kinds of wasps in the United States.
- Hornets and Yellow Jackets are both wasps.
- Wasps are 3/8″ to 5/8″ in size.
- Wasps are most active during the day.
- Most wasps live less than a year.
- Wasps like to live around humans.
- Wasps eat spiders, insects, and human food. They especially love meat and sweets.
- Wasps can sting many times.
- Wasps build nests underground or in trees, shrubs, or in holes in walls.
I was pretty skeptical on how it would come together (a wasp? out of paper???), but I’m thankful that I sat back and let him go forward with his idea. I was also very surprised that he chose a wasp. He HATES wasps! And for good reason; he got stung twice the summer he was 3. However, I think the project helped him work through some of his fear. (fingers crossed!)
Laura Hutchison
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Hey I just wanted to tell you that I stumbled across this post while writing one of my own about learning about wasps. I posted a link back to here. I hope you’ll check it out. The link to my blog: http://wildblumes.blogspot.com/2013/05/wasp-lessons-homeschool.html