Praying Mantis Eggs

According to our classroom insect dictionary, there could be as many as 200 praying mantis inside each of these eggs! This morning during circle time, we passed them around for a closer look.

 We gently felt their texture, listened to them, smelled them, and looked at them closely using almost all of our senses. We decided not to taste them. :)

 We wondered how tiny they will be when them come out. We talked about what they might need to survive, like water and food. 

 We looked at some photographs in our dictionary, too, so we could see what our praying mantis' might look like when they are ready to hatch.

 We learned that praying mantis will eat raw meat of our hand when grown. They also eat smaller bugs so our ladybugs may be in danger. That could be interesting... 

 We decided to add our mantis eggs to the bug aquarium, which is now in the courtyard. They joined the ladybugs and we let some more of them go in the courtyard, too.