5 Activities for Kids Who Love Bugs, Birds and Other Critters

For insect-loving kids, Tiny Science offers entomology classes for kids and a praying mantis hatching kit?! Founder and educator Jen Paur is an evolutionary biologist and mom in West Seattle who is passionate about science literacy and teaching kids to become confident in science. Her upbeat, fun classes about science keeps preschoolers and early-elementary-age kids engaged. (Contact her to see how her offerings might suit your family or group.)

Back to the praying mantises! Sign up for Jen’s newsletter so you know when they'll be offered, typically around May. Each kit comes with a clear plastic cup to observe ootheca, the organic material that holds 50–200 mantis eggs. Within a few weeks, you should see eggs hatching, at which point you’ll release the baby insects into the wild of your backyard. Mantises are “sit and wait” predators, meaning they won’t leave their habitat, so you can enjoy observing your yard pets as they develop all summer long.

Up next: Prowl for owls