Kid Directed Learning: Earwigs!

Yesterday we discovered earwig colonies under a bunch of rocks in our backyard. There seemed to be a large earwig, a whole bunch of teeny earwigs, and some little white eggs. I was curious about why all of these would be clustered together, so looked up earwigs online. Apparently they are one of the few insects that show some maternal behaviors, as the mother earwig stays with the nymphs at least to their first molt. They molt five times before becoming adults. The mothers also watch over their eggs.

I've never really liked earwigs, but I knew they just eat decaying matter like dead leaves, and they in doing so are an important part of an ecosystem. But those pincers do look nasty, so I also looked up whether or not earwigs bite. They can pinch but can't really break the skin and aren't aggressive.

As I was perusing the wikipedia page on earwigs, my son said, "I want that coloring page!" So I printed out the two images of prehistoric earwigs that lived at the time of dinosaurs. He colored them orange, his favorite color, and I helped him cut them out.

I never would have set out to do a lesson on earwigs, of all things. But just by following our curiosity in the backyard, we included science, art, and fine motor skills in our day. I love it when homeschooling evolves this way. The kids are invested, we're all more interested, and we learn something about the creatures that share our home (preferably outside!).