Your whole family will go "buggy" once they realize how fun it is to study insects. Discuss your most recent specimen with Dad at the dinner table. My husband has become one of our biggest bug catchers. One summer he collected an Imperial moth, a green darner dragonfly, a katydid, a praying mantis, and a virgin tiger moth. Claire found a dead hummingbird moth lying on the driveway (we’ve never seen one since). Elizabeth found grasshopper moltings dangling off the tall grass in our field. You never know where or when you will find a bug or its remnants, so be on the lookout and be flexible—that teachable moment may not come again!
For Older Children
Do you have a child who’s frightened of bugs or feels artistically challenged? Well, there are lots of ways to broaden your child’s nature journaling experience, making even the most timid onlooker a keen observer of the natural world. Spring, summer, and fall are the best seasons to stock up on "live" insect specimens, so take advantage of photographing, preserving, and drawing any insect that scurries or flies across your path.
One September Elizabeth caught a praying mantis in the goldenrod east of our house. We decided to keep her as a pet. We read that you could feed them bits of liver on the end of a toothpick. Well, we only had canned cat food. So for 3½ months we fed her Little Friskies and gave her water to drink from a teaspoon. She ate crickets if offered, but preferred to dine on painted lady butterflies. She was affectionately named Prayline, and if bugs can steal your heart, she certainly did.
Enlarging the Eye of the Beholder
When it comes to nature journaling, the bigger the bug the better! Digital cameras are invaluable when it comes to "capturing" an insect in its natural habitat and making it larger than life. Let your child run around the backyard and take pictures of insects while the weather is warm and bugs are in large supply. Encourage your photographer to snap and observe. Insect pictures can be downloaded onto the computer or burned onto CDs for future reference. In the dead of winter you will have an abundant supply of drawing material if you plan ahead. Your child can sit in front of the computer and draw from his own photographs. If he needs to see the bug up close, he can click and enlarge it, enabling him to distinguish the detail that is otherwise hard to see on a moving or tiny specimen.
An Artist’s Insect Collection
For an artist, the primary purpose of keeping an insect collection is for drawing and painting reference. This simplifies the whole process, because you don’t have to pin and label your specimens (unless you want to). If a bug is "unattached," your child is free to turn it over or draw it from different angles. The finished drawing is a record of the specimen, including either its common or scientific name.
