Awesome Adventures: The Boy Who Liked Bugs...The Boy Who Liked Bugs is a story from our new section, Awesome Adventures. It’s about a boy who loved the natural world and wanted to
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The Boy Who Liked Bugs is a story from our new section, Awesome Adventures. It’s about a boy who loved the natural world and wanted to find out more about it! This boy was actually Charles Darwin, and we hope this tale inspires your own curiosity about nature and Darwin’s discoveries!
Teaching ResourcesAwesome Adventures: The Boy Who Liked Bugs
In Brief
1 Literacy lesson ideas Did you find some words in this issue that you don’t know the meaning of? Check out the handy Glossary for help!
Charles Darwin was a curious boy who was always asking questions. Answering the questions on the Class Discussion Sheet is a great way to start thinking about his story!
Darwin liked hunting for things – and you can hunt for contractions, direct speech and proper nouns in an extract from the story on the Reading Comprehension Sheet!
Can you work out how the story of ‘The Boy Who Liked Bugss works? Fill in the Story Structure Sheet!
Put the events in Charles’s story in the right order on the Story Sequencing Sheet!
Charles Darwin loved eating interesting things and describing what they were like! The Eating Adjectives sheet is about words that can be used to describe food – see if you can work out which ones describe how it tastes and which ones describe how it feels!
Use your knowledge of food adjectives to describe the most interesting thing you have tried on the What Have You Eaten? sheet – and don’t forget to draw it too!
Teaching ResourcesAwesome Adventures: The Boy Who Liked Bugs
2 Geography Lesson Ideas Find out more about Charles Darwin and his amazing life and discoveries on the Charles Darwin Fact Sheet!
Charles Darwin saw many places and found many amazing things on his trip around the world. Track his journey on the Voyage of the Beagle sheet, and work out where he made each discovery!
Science lesson ideas3 Follow in the footsteps of Charles Darwin by going hunting for creepy-crawlies in a garden or park! The best places to look are under leaves and rocks, and in cracks in the bark on logs and trees. Write about the creatures you find on the Bug Hunting Sheet. TIP: bring a magnifying class to get a better view of what you find, so you can draw your discoveries in detail!
When you go out looking for insects, also bring along the Creepy-Crawlies Checklist. It has the pictures and names of common creatures – check them off when you find them, and see if you can complete the sheet.
Charles Darwin was an expert on creepy-crawlies, but you can test your own knowledge with the Bugs & Bees quiz. Answer each multiple-choice question, and then check how many you got right by looking at the answers at the bottom of the page.
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Imagine that you are Charles Darwin and you have landed on a far-off island filled with new and interesting plants and animals. Write an imaginary diary entry about what you find there on the Darwin’s Diary page.
The colourful Story Cards can help you create your own story about Charles and the bugs he finds. Start writing your tale, and when you aren’t sure what will happen next, pull out a Story Card to see who shows up. Can you turn the creepy-crawlies into characters?
Teaching ResourcesAwesome Adventures: The Boy Who Liked Bugs
Art lesson ideas4 If you joined Charles Darwin’s Glutton Club, what animal or food would you put on the club badge? Draw your own groovy design on the Glutton Club Badge sheet!
Print out the Colouring Bug sheet and colour in the bug with a cool colour scheme! Real-life insects come in many different colours and patterns, so take a look at a book on insects from the library if you need ideas.
Complete the Darwin Dot-To-Dot to discover an amazing new creature!
Awesome Adventures: The Boy Who Liked Bugs StorytimeTM
Teaching Resources
Name Class
CLASS DISCUSSION SHEET
Text Questions
1. In the story, Charles’s father doesn’t like his son’s hobby and tries
to get him to study things he is not interested in. Do you think Charles’s
father cared about him? Why?
2. Do you think that Charles’s family was rich or poor? Why do you think this?
3. When do you think the story takes place – in the modern day or in the past?
4. One of Charles’s interests is collecting things. What are some other things
that you or people you know collect? Why do you think people like collecting?
5. In the story, Charles is not interested in school but follows his own interests
and in the end achieves great things. What are your interests, and how do you
think you might turn them into a job?
What’s on the menu
Answers: 1. Charles’s father didn’t understand his son, but he did care about him! He tried to get his son to learn how to do useful jobs. Fun fact: in the end, Charles’s father gave his son money so he could afford to go on his voyage on the HMS Beagle! 2. Charles came from a rich family – they lived in a nice big house in the country, had a gardener, and could afford to send him to university in Scotland and Oxford. 3. The story takes place in the past – about 200 years ago to be precise! The clues are: the illustrations show people in old-fashioned clothing, there are no computers or other modern technology mentioned, and Charles rides horses rather than drives.
What do you think would be an interesting thing for the Glutton Club to eat?
In ‘The Boy Who Liked Bugs’, Charles liked finding things. By reading the text below and answering the questions, you can learn how to find proper nouns, direct speech and contractions!
When he was sixteen, Charles’s father decided his youngest son needed to
grow up a bit. “There is more to life than riding all over the countryside and
hunting for disgusting things – what use are they?” he told him. “I’m sending
you to Scotland to study medicine so you can become a doctor like me!”
1. A proper noun is a name of a person, organisation or place. For example,
your names are proper nouns! What are the two proper nouns in the extract?
2. The word ‘youngest’ is used to describe Charles’s position in the family.
What is the opposite of youngest?
3. When something a person says is repeated
exactly in a piece of writing, this is called direct
speech. The beginning and end of direct speech
are marked with quote marks that look like this:
“ ”. How many sentences of direct speech are
there in the extract, and who says them?
4. I’m is an example of a contraction, where
two words are shortened and an apostrophe
is put in place of missing letters. What do you
think a contraction of the words ‘there is’ in
the extract would be?
CONTRACTION CHALLENGE Can you work out what the contractions of these words are?
Charles Darwin was a member of the Glutton Club, which met to try eating interesting things. What is the most interesting or unusual thing that you have eaten? Write about what it was like below!
Imagine that you are Charles Darwin and you have landed on a volcanic island and have seen a strange creature for the first time. Write an imaginary diary entry about it below, and describe what you would see, hear, feel and even smell!
Make up your own story about Charles Darwin going on a bug-hunting expedition. Start with the Charles Darwin card, and then pick up cards to discover what he finds!
Charles Darwin was brilliant at more than one thing. He was a naturalist (who studied nature), a biologist (who studied living things) and a geologist (who studied rocks).
When he was a kid, Charles helped his big brother Erasmus (or ‘Ras’) with his chemistry experiments. They would make all kinds of gasses, so Charles’s school-friends called him ‘Gas’!
When he got back from his voyage, he married Emma Wedgwood – his cousin! They had ten children.
Darwin didn’t just collect living creatures! In South America, he also found fossils of extinct creatures like giant ground sloths.
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Charles is one of the most famous and influential British people of all time – that is why a picture of him was put on the UK’s £10 note!
One of the most amazing places Charles visited was the Galapagos Islands. These volcanic islands are home to many fascinating birds – as well as giant tortoises. Charles tried eating tortoise, of course!
When he got back from his voyage on the Beagle, Charles worked very hard writing down everything he had discovered. He worked so hard that he got ill and had to go on holiday to rest!
His most famous book is called On the Origin of Species. It is about his theory that living things changed, or evolved, over thousands of years.
9Charles wasn’t the first member of his family to have ideas about how living things might evolve! His grandfather Erasmus also wrote about this idea in a book called Zoonomia.
10A lot of people did not agree with Charles’s ideas about evolution, and hated the idea that humans had the same ancestors as other apes! Newspapers even published cartoons of Charles with a chimp’s body!
There are lots of interesting creepy-crawlies to be found in parks and gardens! When you go outside, take this checklist with you and tick off the creatures that you find.
Awesome Adventures: The Boy Who Liked Bugs StorytimeTM
Teaching Resources
Name Class
BUGS & BEES QUIZ
1 How many legs do spiders have?
A. ThreeB. FourC. Eight
2 What do bees make to feed their young?A. JamB. HoneyC. Butter
3 What is the
young form of a
butterfly called?
A. A caterpillar
B. A dogerpillar
C. A pup
4What is the ant in charge of an ant nest called?A. The presidentB. The queen
C. The King
5 Which insects look like bees, but do not make honey?
A. SpidersB. FliesC. Wasps
6 What is the heaviest insect in the world?A. Goliath beetleB. MayflyC. Ladybird
7 Which of these
insects has a
glowing bottom?
A. DragonflyB. FireflyC. Butterfly
8 How many different kinds of beetles are there in the world?A. About 40B. About 4000C. About 400,000
Answers: 1. C, 2. B, 3. A, 4. B, 5. C, 6. A, 7. B, 8. C.
Imagine that you are a member of Charles Darwin’s Glutton Club, and have been given the job of designing the club badge! What creature or food would you put on it?