The Bug Box/The Bug Book

It all started with The Bug Box. A cousin-in-law kindly sent the girls a few insect specimens. My mother packed these specimens in an old art box and added a few of her own to the collection. The girls quickly named it The Bug Box. They loved looking in the box, they loved examining each of the specimens with their magnifying glass and they loved quizzing each other on the names the specimens. But there just weren't enough bugs, so the girls went searching for some more specimens. They found a dead dragonfly, a dead grasshopper, a dead centipede, a dead wasp, dead moths, numerous dead beetles, and about thirty cicada moltings (that would be all those dirty looking brown objects in the largest compartment.)

The girls also found a number of live insects. They were very excited by these finds, but were disappointed that these live insects could not go in The Bug Box. "Do you think it will die soon?" the girls would ask as they followed some poor insect across the yard.

And so The Bug Book began. I would take the girls for walks and we'd look for dead and live insects. If they found a dead insect, we'd collect it for The Bug Box... ...if we found a live one, I would take a picture of it for The Bug Book. At least once a week we print off our latest pictures and add them to our photo album. I'm slowly working at adding names, dates, and locations to our pictures.
It has turned into quite a fun project for all of us. It has definitely made our walks much more exciting (who can spot the next new bug!) and has helped to make us all more observant.We've talked about other book possibilities (like a bird book), but have decided to stick with just insects for now. We have a lot more pages to fill in our photo album and a lot more "bugs" to discover.