Ugly Bug Ball

Gotta crawl, gotta crawl, gotta crawl, to the Ugly Bug Ball. What a happy time we'll have there, one and all, at the Ugly Bug Ball. If you don't know that song, youtube it. Burl Ives. Ugly Bug Ball. It rocks.

What else rocked? Our own Ugly Bug Ball.

The decorations included bugs, obviously.

Lindsay Ann and Wyatt came early to help me set up. Thank you, guys!!

Costumes were mandatory. We had a great assortment of wings and antenna and butterfly masks--and my favorite, the yellow balloon Ana tucked into her pants so she could be a firefly.

We danced (it was a ball after all) to bug music and Halloween music. I tried to play follow the leader with the guests, but they had more energy than me and mostly just ran around the gym. Cowen danced for a short while before his little face got white and he had to rest. Most of the children in attendance were at some stage of sickness or recovering from sickness--but I think everyone still had fun despite that.

After dancing, we played Test Your Insect Knowledge. I photocopied 10 pictures of various insects from library books and taped them to the wall and then everyone filled out an answer sheet with their guesses. We had a three-way tie (plus Kami, but adults didn't get a prize) between Miriam, Danica and Myles who all got nine correct. Great job!! We should have given Kiersten a special prize for most creative answers. Everyone else just left things blank when they didn't know the answer. Kiersten came up with these fantastic guesses. Loved it.

After Test Your Knowledge we played Pin the Wings on the Bug. Timothy drew this stellar bug for me and made these great wings to tape onto the bug, but I threw them away before I realized I didn't have a picture. It's hard to take pictures and be in charge.

After Pin the Wings on the Bug everyone decorated a cupcake with mud (icing) and bugs (insect candy from Oriental Trading). Yum!

Megan brought two stellar crafts. In the above picture, the kids are making leaves, coloring butterflies and sticking them in chrysalis's. My kids loved it. Miriam took hers home and put them in our now empty butterfly cage and has been carrying it around ever since.

We also made a witch door hanger that was really cute, but alas, I took no pictures.

After pizza and cupcakes and finishing up crafts the kids took all the balloons down and played "chase each other with balloons" and "who can pop the balloon first" and other good things like that while the adults cleaned up. Everyone had a great time and it was a good conclusion to our insect unit. I just feel bad that Julie and kids were quarantined so they couldn't make it. Sorry guys, hope you're feeling better!!