I’m a sucker for books, games and toys with educational value. It somehow strikes me that there’s no particular reason that educational toys can’t be fun and fun toys can’t be educational.

That’s one if the reasons I like the Insect Lore Bug Life Cycle Fun Book. If you yearn to get your little one interested in science, the science of bugs is one of the best places to start. You’re never more than three feet from a spider (yes, that’s usually true) and bugs of every type can easily be found in most neighborhoods and unfortunately neighborhood homes.

We spend the summer doing insect studies. We checked a number of children’s books out of the library over the last few months – most read-a-loud, a few, stumble through yourself and look at the pictures. We examined bugs with a magnifying glass and photographed them in their homes (and ours).

And we did lots of activities like those found in this book. Cementing learning with fun activities like drawing, dot-to-dot and projects like making puppets and masks is a time tested technique for a positive attitude toward school and schoolwork.

Insect Lore Bug Life Cycle Fun Book comes with 4 crayons and includes information on the butterfly lifecycle too.