Earlier this term, Pete the Bug Man, as we liked to call him, visited our school. We are learning about our locality, other countries and insects as our topic for this term is “The Ugly Bug Ball”. He visited each class in the school and brought with him a huge rucksack, unbelievably full of the largest insects we have seen close up.Pete is no stranger to large groups of children as he has supported the Deadly 60 tour with CBBC and runs school events, after- school clubs and parties in the Bristol area.
First he visited class 6 with children aged ten and eleven, where all the pupils and staff were fascinated by the bugs. One boy said, “The cockroaches were enormous and so cool!”. Everyone thought it was “Bugtastic” and learned a great deal about the spitting cockroach.Pete taught each class about the importance of insects on our planet and made us think that we are here but not in charge!
Elliott Hodge from class 5 reported feeling excited by the bugs and that something really special had happened in school. Pete had all the bugs which were venomous in Perspex containers but others crawled on his hands and were brought close to children who wanted to see them. In key stage one, with our youngest pupils, Pete was impressed with the excellent questions that were asked. Class 3 drew their favourite insect and labelled diagrams. Some of their comments in their books were: “Pete was good at explaining,”… Eva Allington said, “Some of the insects looked sweet,”….. “Having Pete was a fantastic way to learn about large insects,”….. and one child reported that he had learned something new….. that Tarantulas breathe through vents in their back halves so they can’t drown if you put their head under water. The way that Pete introduced the animals made us feel safe and he made us respect the insects in our country and the bigger ones elsewhere!
If you would like more information about Pete and the experiences he offers, check out his website at www.bigbugbag.com. We are really enjoyed his visit and all the children were able to see insects from other parts of the world that they could only have seen in the zoo! This really was on the wild side!
The Lympstone Newshounds: Charlotte Abrahams and Scarlett Richards
Research and quotes also provided by George Mitchell and Harry Bainbridge.
Thank you to class 3 who wrote up the visit as part of their science work.
