House of Burke: Fine Motor Bug Transfer

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for supporting us!

Happy Fine Motor Fridays!! After going on a bug hunt the day before and being unsuccessful at bringing any buggies home to observe, I threw together this fun fine motor bug transfer activity so that K could successfully "catch" some bugs of his own. Using our tried and true Melissa & Doug Sunny Patch Bag of Bugs (the friendliest little bugs around!) and our Dollar Tree bug catching kit, K got to try his hand at using his first pair of tweezers, and also scooping with the net!

I was really happy with how challenging this activity was for K. Having never used tweezers before, I had to demonstrate multiple times how to grasp them. He worked his fine motor skills like crazy trying to pick up each of the bugs. We had a few frustrating moments before he seemed to somewhat get the hang out it.

As he worked on getting each bug into the bucket (a feat in itself since the opening was smaller than most of the bugs and he had to figure out which way to turn them to get them in), I told him the name of each of the bugs he was picking up. He repeated the names after me, and then started naming them himself as he picked up each one!

Since these bugs are also irregular colors, we identified their colors and I asked him to pick up specific bugs. For example, I asked him, "Kingston can you put the red ant into the bucket", and he would oblige. He liked the crickets (or grasshoppers) the best! I found this comical since they are my least favorite insect EVER.

Once his jar was full, he dumped them out and repeated the activity multiple times.

When his little fingers got tired from working the tweezers, I got out the net to practice his scooping and pouring. Scooping the bugs with the flimsy little net was a tricky task, and I helped him by letting him scoop the bugs out of my hand. We also pretended the bugs were running from him or jumping in the net.

He then transferred all of the bugs into the bucket.

This activity held his interest for so long, and I know it will be something he comes back to a lot throughout the next week. Despite his focus, he couldn't help goofing off a little with the bug jar. He's such a silly little munchkin!