Fly life cycle- part 1 growing maggots

I have been on the on going quest to rid my daughter of her bug phobia so we have been watching lots of videos on insects and reading lots of books. I figure that the more she understands that insects will not hurt her the less likely she will be scared of them. Next up on our bug journey is breeding flies. Yes, of course we could do butterflies but she is not afraid of those. Flies are gross but they breed easy, we have no problem growing them in our garbage can outside at least 2 times each summer! Lol! We tried mealworms last year with out success, so flies it is wish us luck!.



Step 1
Gather about 1 lb. Of meat scraps I chose beef so we could better see the eggs. Then put in a shallow container I chose a ziplock bag because all I use is glassware in the kitchen and I certainly will not want to wash the container and eat out of it again!

Step 2
Add some water to keep the meat moist, then poke some pretty big holes for the flies to get in and place the container in the sun it will need to be at least 90 degrees in the container for the maggots to thrive.Here is my daughter adding water to our meat



Here are some great bug and fly books:


ABC book with big bright realistic pictures of bugs with great descriptions it is one of my children's favorite books.



A great factual book about the life cycle of flies.



a great book the goes through letters of the alphabet while the fly is buzzing around different places causing a mess!

Fly activity:
We use this book above for letter recognitions and phonological awareness.
Use a white board or black board and draw letters on it then give children fly swatters to hit the correct letter that you say or letter sound. My kids LOVE this activity. Then wipe of the bug guts (the letter) with a tissue after the correct number was splattered.

Please follow us to see more fly activities and parts 2-4 of our fly life cycle.