Make a home for minibeasts
(Pre-school and Reception)
You can build your bug homes at any time of year, but you’ll find lots of natural materials around in autumn. This is also the time when many animals look for cosy places to hibernate over winter.
By caring for minibeasts and other animals, you are helping your child respect and care for creatures. They're exploring the natural world they live in.
You will need:
To build a bug hotel, collect lots of natural materials. Below is a selection you can choose from and may find in your garden or local green space.
- Old wooden pallets
- Strips of wood
- Straw
- Moss
- Dry leaves
- Woodchips
- Old terracotta pots
- Old roofing tiles
- Bricks with holes through them
- Old logs
- Bark
- Pinecones
- Sand
- Soil
- Planks of wood
When you have finished, and you have let the new insect home settle into its new location. You and your child will want to see if you have any minibeast guests.
You don’t need any special equipment to go on a bug hunt. The items below might help if your children want to get a closer look at the creepy crawlies they find.
- clear containers to hold your mini beasts while you study them
- a spoon or small paintbrush to scoop up your finds
- a magnifying glass for examining tiny details
What to do
Insect hotel
This is a project that will take time. You'll need to collect the natural resources. Your bug hotel should attract:
- ladybirds
- bees
- woodlice
- spiders
- frogs
- hedgehogs
Divide it into sections and cram each part with different natural materials. Dry leaves, twigs, hollow stems, dead grass, pinecones and bits of bark are ideal. They will help to create warm, dry spaces that will attract different creepy crawlies.
Log pile lodge
This is a quick and easy project for you and your child to do. It's often the most successful at attracting minibeasts. Decaying wood is important for wildlife.
To make a log pile, collect small logs, large sticks, and pieces of rotting wood. Pile them up in a damp, shady area of your garden, then put some dead leaves in the nooks and crannies to make it cosy. This type of mini-beast home will attract centipedes, woodlice, and beetles. They like to burrow into decaying wood. Log piles may also attract birds, frogs and hedgehogs looking for food.
Skills your child will learn
It's good to develop your child's knowledge of the natural world they live in.
Over time your child can develop the skills to talk about:
- how things such as buildings, plants, insects, animals, and people look the same and how they look different.
- what things like plants, insects and babies need to grow and how they change as they grow.
- how to take care of small creatures. How to hold it without damaging it and to know that they must always place it back where they found it.