Happy first day of May! As the weather warms up, we will be learning more about nature. The topic for today's storytime is bugs! It includes three book suggestions, three activities including the "bugs in a rug" felt play, and an adorable bug craft to wrap it all up!
Book 1: The Tickly Spider
This book is about a tickly spider who crawls across a young boy's face. There are also several other bugs in the book (ladybugs, caterpillars, dragonflies, etc.) that I asked the kids to identify as we read. They really enjoyed this one!
Book 2: Diego's Buzzing Bee Adventure
This is not a traditional storybook, but I ended up grabbing it from our easy reader shelf after realizing we didn't have enough bug books for our storytime (I waited too long to place the holds at the other libraries. Oops!)
Still, this book worked well because the kids are already familiar with Diego, the cousin of Dora the Explorer. Diego rescues a group of bees from the rain in this book, which I liked because I wanted to share the following facts about bees:
1. All worker bees are female.
2. Bees are endangered!
3. You can save an exhausted bee by giving it sugar water to drink.
I also like that this book asks the reader to locate different objects, just like in the show, if you've ever seen it. You can show the kids the pictures and ask them to find the objects. There is also a page where they have to choose an object to protect the bees from the rain.
Book 3: Caterpillar Spring, Butterfly Summer
This adorable pop-up book shows the daily life of a caterpillar before it transforms into a butterfly! It turned out to be a perfect choice because the kids were learning about caterpillars and butterflies in their preschool class before they came in. They were also very amused by the texture of the caterpillar. It reminded them of a trampoline or bouncy house.
Activity 1: Bug Movements
After the first book, I asked the students to stand up and we pretended we were a bunch of different bugs. The prompts are above, but I also added "munch like a caterpillar" and "hop like a grasshopper."
Activity 2: Rhyme Matching (Bee vs Fly)
Like always, I gave the kids two words - "bee" and "fly" - then had them identify which of the flashcards rhymed with each. This time, I had a student hold "bee" up and take the e cards and another student held "fly" and the i cards.
The kids did SO well this time! Only one student ended up calling out a single wrong answer. They really are getting good at this! :D
Activity 3: Bugs in a Rug
This flannel activity was all over Pinterest, so it's hard to say where it originated from, but the first example I saw was from Michelle Storytime and hers look AWESOME.
The kids LOVED this game, though they were tempted to cheat. First we identified each of the bugs individually, then I had them turn around while I hid one bug (two in the later rounds). I had them turn back around and call out which bug was hiding.
When they had trouble, I'd poke a bit of the bug's antenna out to give them a hint, or I would say something like "this bug marches."
Craft: Fluttery Friends 
I found this craft from Crafty Morning on Pinterest. Aren't they adorable? You can make any winged bug you like (dragonflies, ladybugs, bees, butterflies, etc.) and the kids can even make up their own type of bug, depending on how they want to color it and organize the pipe cleaners.
A butterfly and bee I made. If you have magnetic strips, these would be super cool to stick to the fridge and put reminders in!
And before the kids left, I gave each of them one of the bug rings we had leftover from Halloween. There were spiders, beetles, and scorpions.