Clothespin Grasshopper

• Preschoolers love doing hands-on, messy crafts, so get them involved right away with a short but satisfying grasshopper craft that can be used as a magnet. Give each child a clothespin to paint green or just use markers if you'd prefer to avoid the messy part. Glue googly eyes onto either side of the front of the clothespin that would normally clip to the line. Thread a green pipe cleaner through the metal brackets on the clothespin and bend on either side to resemble jumping legs. Add a magnet strip to the belly side of the grasshopper to complete your clothespin grasshopper.
  
  

Grasshopper Fable

• Entertain your class and teach them a lesson when you read them "The Grasshopper and the Ant," one of Aesop's fables teaching responsibility. Print out ant and grasshopper images to use on your felt board to illustrate the story, use a grasshopper craft to bring the characters to life or invite preschoolers to color pictures to create their own interpretation of the story. The fable can be read as a springboard to discuss what grasshoppers eat, how they survive the winter and what kinds of sounds they make.
  
  

Grasshopper Life Cycle

• While preschoolers may be familiar with the life cycle of other insects such as butterflies, use your grasshopper lesson to educate them on another type of insect life cycle. Make a life cycle wheel for each preschooler or a larger one to put in the front of the classroom to aid your discussion. You will need a circle divided into four equal segments and four pie-shaped pieces illustrating the stages of egg, hatching, nymph and adult grasshoppers for preschoolers to put in order and glue onto the larger circle. Attach another circle with one wedge cut out to the first circle with a brass fastener and spin to reveal each stage.
  
  

Grasshopper Hop

• Introduce preschoolers to the anatomy of a grasshopper with an enlarged photo or drawing. Discuss the head, antennae, thorax, abdomen, wings and legs and the use of each part as compared to their own bodies. Have students count the different parts of the body and then invite them to act like a grasshopper by fluttering their wings or hopping as high as they can. Soon you will have happy children hopping all over the classroom as they learn about grasshoppers and release some excess energy.