This old stump

Our yard is little, but I suppose that to insects it's pretty dang big. Recently we spent an afternoon turning over rocks, riffling through damp ivy, and checking the undersides of flowerpots for insects -- all in the pursuit of education, and not just because it was a heck of a lot of fun.

Okay, maybe it was the latter.

One of the greatest bug habitats we found was a tarp that had been cast on the ground overnight. When we pulled it up, the whole underside was covered with slugs. Delight all around.

But the piece de resistance was the old stump. About ten years ago a hurricane polished off a bunch of pine trees in our yard, and we were left with their stumps. Rather than pay to have them dug out, I figured they would decompose sooner or later. I was right! They were mushy and rotted, and -- score! -- home to all sorts of insects. The kids used butter knives and plastic spoons to chip away layers of bark. They found ants and termite larvae (kill! kill! kill!) and a bunch of other creepy crawlies, and we even kept some of them in a plastic container for the afternoon. Luckily the kids bored of "playing" with them quickly, and we ceremonially released them to return to their mommies and daddies (except the termite larvae).

And sure, I'm still missing a couple butter knives, and now instead of ugly stumps we have decimated wood chunks on which children or small animals could easily impale themselves, but was it worth it from an educational perspective?

You bet.