After reading Don’t Squash That Bug! and learning about insects through other books and activities, students can share their knowledge of insects by writing an acrostic poem.  For each letter of the alphabet, students write a fact that they learned about insects.  For instance, for the letter A, students could write something like “Ants live in colonies” or “Apples are a food that mealworms eat.”

Students will need to get creative for letters such as Q, X, and Z.  Allow students to look through the dictionary for different words they can use to create a fact on insects.  If they are having a hard time, they can use the letter as the second letter in the word, such as using an “ex-” word for X. 

Instead of the alphabet, you can also have students create acrostic poems with the letters of their first and last names or create an acrostic poem about an insect using the letters of that insect’s name.

To see an example of what a second grader created, click here for PDF.

A great skill for students to practice is comparing and contrasting attributes of various organisms.  With each insect group, students can answer yes or no to attributes such as

• Does it have wings?
• Does it eat plants?
• Does it eat other insects?
• Does it make noises, such as chirping or buzzing?

Not all of the questions will be able to be answered just from reading the book.  Students can fill in ones they are unsure of with question marks and do further research to find the answers.  Some boxes might need to be filled in with the word “sometimes” instead of “yes” or “no.”

This activity can be done as a whole class or in pairs.  If you would like to use a premade attribute worksheet, click here for PDF

If you want to teach your class how pollination works, try this lesson I wrote for the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Chicago: Click here for PDF