Dragonfly Mini Unit

My little Lambies are learning about dragonflies right now. It all started with a chapter we read in "Among the Pond People" by Clara Dillingham Pierson. I always bring up images of the animals we are reading about so the children can imagine the story better. The Snapping Turtle was illustrated with this picture:



The Dragonfly Children were illustrated thusly:



I printed these for the Littles to color: Dragonfly Lifecycle and Dragonfly and the older children (just those who wanted to participate) drew them using this tutorial: Draw a Dragonfly.

Eyewitness Insects has a beautifully photographed series of an emerging damselfly. A dragonfly's emergence is very similar. My copy of this book is older and has a different picture on the cover than the one I linked to. It seems that the insides are the same though.

I read "Sir Small and the Dragonfly" to Missy and Troubles. They got a laugh out of it.

Best of all, I found a perfectly undamaged deceased dragonfly while I was walking last week, so I had a wonderful specimen to show them. They got to see the compound eyes close up, see the intricate veining in the wings and observe the many jointed legs. We could not pry open the mandibles, but they did get a close look. We used magnifying glasses and also the microscope. It was a good day of science for the Littles.