Warm temperatures, sunny skies, a slower pace. Summer always seems like the best time to study … bugs! After all, bugs are certainly easy to find in the summer. If your children are aching to create a collection — and if Mom can stomach it — start them off with a bug collection. The Young Collector’s Handbook by W. Harcourt Bath includes such enticing specimens as:
- Ants.
- Bees.
- Dragonflies.
- Earwigs.
- Crickets
- Flies.
But lest you think this is for young investigators only, students will become familiar with the following classes of insects:
- Hymenoptera
Bees, Wasps, Ants, Saw Flies, Gall Flies, Ichneumon Flies, and their allies. - Neuroptera
Dragon Flies, Day Flies, Lacewing Flies, Stone Flies, Caddis Flies, and their allies. - Orthoptera
Grasshoppers, Locusts, Crickets, Cockroaches, Earwigs, and their allies. - Hemiptera
Bugs, Skaters, Lantern Flies, Frog Hoppers, Aphides, and their allies. - Diptera
Gnats, Midges, Crane Flies, Hawk Flies, Bee Flies, Breeze Flies, Bot Flies, and their allies.
Each family includes black-and-white illustrations of the critters in question, how to identify them, what they eat, where to find them. The text is kept to a minimum making this an easy bug guidebook to use in the field, or as the author intended, “A Guide to Collecting Insects.”
Most boys have a fondness for forming collections of various objects, such as Foreign Stamps, Crests, and Coins; but very few comparatively collect Natural Objects. Now it will be admitted by all that the collecting of Natural Objects, such as Insects, Shells, Plants, Fossils, Minerals, etc., possesses immense advantages over that of Foreign Stamps and the like; for the former, besides satisfying the collecting ambitions, also cultivates the observant and intellectual faculties, while at the same time affording healthful recreation in the fields and woods.
Sounds like an unobtrusive way to keep them learning this summer!
Free eBook
Further Investigation
Elementary Study of Insects {Free eBook}
Young bug-lovers’ beginning guide to etymology includes instructions for observing and collecting insects, and making a bug notebook. This book is geared toward a more formal study.
First Book of Bugs {Free E-Book}
Younger readers will enjoy this first bug book. (Did you know that the stink bug is the only bug scientists refer to as a bug? Who knew.)
DIY Homeschooler 