Are your kids buzzing with excitement about bugs? Get ready for a summer full of buggy fun with creative activities inspired by The Very Quiet Cricket that will engage your child and their friends!
Do your kids love bugs? It’s time to get buggy! We’ve gathered some fun filled buggy activities for you to create with your child this summer!
These bug activities even work well with inviting friends for a Book Club Playdate.
We are inviting you to join the fun too. Share your The Very Quiet Cricket Activities in the comments below. That way all summer long we have a menu full of Bug Activities for our children.
The Very Quiet Cricket Activities
The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle 
by Eric Carle
A very small cricket tries again and again to make a chirp by rubbing his wings together as other insects pass him, making their unique sounds and movements. Each page has an insect and a verb describing his behavior. Each page also ends with “the little cricket wanted to answer so he rubbed his wings together, but nothing happened. Not a sound.”
While you’re reading the story make sure you have your child pretend to rub their wings (arms) together to help him make a sound… they will love it and will be very surprised at the end when it really works!
Did you know it’s a Love Story? Eric Carle shares on his blog “My book The Very Quiet Cricket is really a love story. For when they find each other, “…he chirped the most beautiful sound that she had ever heard.”
If you don’t have a copy of The Very Quiet Cricket here’s a version of the story for your child to enjoy and then join the buggy fun!
CLICK NOW for 100+ Eric Carle Activities
Bug Themed Activities for Kids
Now’ it’s time for some Buggy Fun!
- Observe a Bug
- Create a Bug
- Read a Bug
- Sort a Bug
- Write a Bug
- Play with a Bug
- Listen to a Bug
Science Facts About Crickets
After reading the The Very Quiet Cricket get several crickets from a bait shop and let your children watch them make noise. We used a bug viewer for the Dollar Tree, a must for summer fun.
Once your children have seen them take them outside and set them free.
Supplies for Create a Bug
We created our own insects using simple items and our imagination
- Paper
- crayons
- paint
- pipe cleaners
- egg carton
- wax paper for wings
- glitter
- sequins
Sort a Bug
Using bugs you can sort them by their different characteristics. How many legs, wings, sounds, size. It’s great to build vocabulary. We sorted ours here by how many legs and wings. I adore this Build a Bug set from Lamaze.
It’s one of those toys that grows with your child, so both my 1 year old and 5 year old can play with it. So glad I found it at a garage sale 🙂 The dollar store is a great spot to find bug to play with too.
We like to use those in our Water Table.
Printable The Very Quiet Cricket Sorting Activity
Printable Vocabulary Words from The Very Quiet Cricket
We printed both the Sorting Activity and the Vocabulary Activity. Arrange the pictures by retelling the story in order. It’s important for reading comprehension to be able to retell a story.
Then we sorted the words by which insect they belong with. This is a good activity for differerent levels in reading. for beginning they can use matching skills to match the names of each insect.
Then as they progress in reading you can add the verbs.
Listen to a Bug
We had fun making music with our bug instruments. Another toy that works well for different ages! You could even create your own bug shakers too for friends to bring home
Noise Activity We had fun sorting out the pictures and discussing which things are loud and which things are quiet.
Listen to Bug Sounds & Discover why they make sounds
Write a Bug
Sequencing Cards and Sorting Activity
Using the sorting pictures you can have your child write about the bug. They can label it with the name or even create a new story about each bug
Activities for Read a Bug
The Very Quiet Cricket Emergent Reader
Bug Activities
More Very Quiet Cricket Activities
For more Book Inspired Activities join our Virtual Book Club for Kids
What an amazing unit! I love the wonderful variety to activities you shared.
Thanks! It's hard to keep both a 1 1/2 year old having fun and a 5 year old so I tried to share as much as I could for many ages. Especially during the summer you'll find playdates with varying ages, here's a great resource to do just that!
What an amazing unit! I love the wonderful variety to activities you shared.
I'm so glad you joined us for the Virtual Book Club! I love how determined your little one was to find her cricket she heard, even Daddy was a big helper. I know she'll catch on this summer for sure now. I'll admit I'm very jealous of the firefly she caught instead.
Thanks Cerys, The girls really enjoy using the intruments for music time at our house. Thanks for sharing your post too, I loved your bug adventure in your backyard. We've been finding lots of worms and ants in our adventures recently. Although when we went blueberry picking we discovered grasshoppers, wasps, bees, beetles, spiders and lots of butterflies. Who would have thought all those insects live with the berries!
Such wonderful bug ideas! I love the create a bug idea too! This was so fun!
What a great selection of activities. I love the sorting bugs and the bug musical instruments (will have to watch out for those :D).