Playing games can be a helpful way to demonstrate basic skills like counting, as well as to incorporate the material you've covered about insects. Create a variety of colorful paper butterflies, and then cut each in half down the middle. Mix up the wings and ask the students to find the matches. For a more active game, play Simon Says using the different developmental stages of caterpillars. When you call out "caterpillar," students crawl around on the ground. They curl up into a ball when you call "cocoon" and run around the room flapping their wings when you call "butterfly."
Keep your students engaged with a variety of insect-themed activities, like an insect hunt outside. Take the class out on a nice day and search for real examples of the bugs you've discussed in class. Examine the insects' actions and habitats, and discuss your observations as a class. Also, through videos introduce your students to the ways bees use special dances to communicate with one another, and then have the students imitate the dances in the classroom. This is a silly but informative activity that your students should get a kick out of.
There are a wide variety of crafts to make that are inspired by insects. For instance, use pom-poms, pipe cleaners and google eyes to make cuddly insect friends, or cut up an egg carton and paint each section to look like the students' favorite bugs. Use colored ink pads to create fingerprint bugs on blank white sheets of paper. Each fingerprint represents a portion of the bug's body, and you can help the students give their creations faces, legs and antennae using black crayons or colored pencils.
Snack time is a crucial part of any preschool day, so incorporate the insect lesson plan into your daily snacks. One simple idea is to coat pretzel rods with peanut butter and chocolate sprinkles to resemble ants on a log. Serve individual portions of dirt pudding using chocolate pudding sprinkled with crushed chocolate cookies and gummy worms. For a less sugary alternative, cut up a cucumber into slices and overlap the slices to look like a caterpillar's body. Add carrot sticks as the legs, and use cream cheese as the glue to make everything hold together.