Creepy Crawlers - Exploring Insects

Did anyone else have a Creepy Crawlers maker toy as a child? It is the chemically cousin to the Easy Bake Oven. It churned out neon colored jiggly bugs that a child cherishes for 2 minutes, before  the child promptly leaves the bug to be eaten by the dog off of a cream couch cushion. This weekend, as the weather decided it could act like Spring for a moment in Chicago, some real life creepy crawlers and winged creatures made their way into our yard.

This seemed like a prime opportunity to discuss insects.  I resisted the urge to purchase a Creepy Crawler maker toy, bug catching kit and a hazmat suit for myself. I kept it simple. We looked at meal worms and crickets, with a print out of their life cycles. We then fed the bugs to our box turtle, so if you do not have a turtle  laying around, I understand. We played with dollar store plastic bugs in homemade play dough and we made bugs out of stones and sticks, to breakdown the body parts of a bug.

Keeping it simple did take 30 minutes of prep work on my part, but we had fun and my son is still talking about how a spider is not an insect and repeating the word thorax. Because apparently it is hilarious to say. If Spring has sprung in your neck of the woods, give these little activities a try and let me know how your low-tech insect adventure goes!

Make Your Own Light Table

Much like a moth to a flame...every time we visit a play place or library that has a light table, my son naturally runs to scope it out. Not clever that time, sorry. So anything that my child plays with for more than 10 minutes, I feverishly Google and see how much the item in question costs. Well, when I searched light table, I was less than thrilled to learn that they can cost around $200.

After that bombshell I thought, you can buy some lights for like $2 and a used wood kid's table for about $10 online, but put the words light and table together and hand over your credit card. So I had to fight my anti-DIY tendencies and make a plan.

I did some research and decided on the sweater box method in the name of: I live in a small house and don't want to stare at an extra table in my living room. So I bought a fully clear (including the lid) sweater box for about $11, 3 strands of Christmas tree lights at $2 a box and I already had black construction paper. While you could use wax paper to line the inside of the lid, I decided to take a sander to the inside of the lid, with a fine grit paper. I then drilled a hole in the side of the box and lined the rest of the box with black construction paper, simply by taping it down. Finally, I placed the lights in the box, connecting the strands to one another, and feeding the loose end on the drilled hole. cover the lid, plug in and you have a light table.

We don't have the most well known brand, Magnatile, but rather a brand called Picasso Tiles that I purchased on Groupon. Most brands appear to work together. Best of all, you can store the tiles IN the box and shove the box under the bed when your child isn't playing with it.

I am not a DIY mom by any means, but this was an hour well spent. My son has played with this for a few months now, and I see it lasting us a good while. $17 well spent!