1. Students will sing songs about insects for enjoyment.
2. Students will use critical thinking skills and listen to insect-related lyrics for information about insects to determine if the lyrics are factual or not.
3. Students will discuss as a class the information learned about insects in the songs.
4. Students will write a poem, song, or rap about insects.

Materials Needed:

• Lyrics to songs about insects
• Writing supplies

Procedure:

Have the students find the lyrics and/or music to the familiar insect songs such as:

The Ants Go Marching One by One
I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly

or other songs about insects the students know. The lyrics could be found in books, but an extended activity would be to have the students locate them on the Internet. For example, the search strings "ants go marching one by one" and "lady + swallowed + fly" will find the two songs listed above.

Amazing Insects - Songs! has several songs written by Suzy Gazlay (SingingSci@aol) with AIMS Magazine. Students could do their own Internet searches by entering "insects + music" on the search line.

Sing the songs as a classroom activity for the students' enjoyment. Have them visualize what is happening in a song while they sing it.

Discuss as a class the information about each insect learned from the songs.

1. Based on what the students have learned about insects, is the information in each song correct?
2. Which information is not correct, if any? Why?
3. Is it necessary for songs about insects to be completely factual?
4. Which insect would you rather be and why?

Supplemental Activities:

Locate versions of the following classical music pieces:

"Madame Butterfly" by Puccini
"The Firefiles" by Jean Sibelius
"The Flight of the Bumblebee" by Rimsky Korsakov

Listen to them as a class and discuss how the music makes the students feel. Can they visualize the insects the pieces are named for? Check with these related Internet sites: FINFO Sibelius: Finland's Voice in the World has information on this composer) and the Arizona Opera's website; click on Puccini in the lefthand frame to get information on both the composer and his work.

Read poems about insects to the students. Aileen Fisher has written a number of such poems, including "Firefly" and "Ants." A. A. Milne's poem "Forgiven" is about a beetle, and Christina Rossetti wrote the poem "What Does the Bee Do?" Look in anthologies and magazines such as Children's Digest to find other insect poetry to read to the class. For older students, Robert Frost wrote "The Tuft of Flowers" and "Blue Butterfly Day." These and other poems about insects can be found in anthologies or textbooks. Have the students work in groups or individually and compose their own songs, poems, or raps about insects. Share these efforts with the class.

An alternate assignment is to have the students write a particular type poem. Share these example poems with the students:

Cinquain: five-line poem in which the first line is one word, the second line contains two words, the third line contains three words, the fourth line contains four words, and the fifth line is again one word.

Haiku: a three-line poem in which the lines are composed of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively. Haiku poetry is usually about nature. The reader must fill in the details.

Limerick: a five-line, humorous poem in which lines 1, 2, and 5 rhyme, and lines 3 and 4 rhyme. Lines 1, 2, and 5 are anapestic (a metric foot of two short syllables followed by one long syllable).