Nice work, encore!

That’s a sweet little routine. The nursery rhyme calls out for a flash finale… Pyrotechnics and sponge balls. Now there’s a combination!

Somehow your creative thinking is cross-pollinating; i’m thinking of using small flower pots for a cups and balls variants. With a little ball made from straw. And a piece of bamboo cane for a wand. With a final load. Of straw. And earwigs.

I’ve never worked with earwigs. And so far haven’t uncovered their representation anywhere in conjuring… Quite challenging to wrangle as they move very quickly.

Small flower pots for cups using Roly-Poly bugs. The final load is used as an educational tool, they are not really bugs, they are a crustacean. As you tip each flower pot over... These are bugs! Your final loads are earwigs, a hissing cockroach, and perhaps a Pseudoscorpion or Whip Scorpion (though these are arachnids).

Pseudoscorpions? Now there’s an ambitious wish. I’ve only encountered one once, sitting on top of a box in my garage. One of their other names, ‘chelifer’, is one of my favourite words.

I do get a bit obsessed with making clear the difference between arachnids, crustaceans, myriapods etc. And ‘bugs’ which, as you know, are technically an order, Hemiptera. Dorsally flattened and biting/sucking mouthparts.

Schools miss a trick when they talk about ‘mini-beasts’ and bugs. Great opportunity to help children appreciate nature and correct taxonomy…

P.S. Never work with bed bugs or assassin bugs….

P.P.S. Roly-poly crustaceans: Woodlice [definitely not lice] have more folk names than any other creature I know of…. Pill bugs, cheese logs, cheese pigs, butcher boys, chugging wigs, granny grunters, monkey peas… We could go on…. And probably will…. (:

Though discontinued, here is another insect item...
https://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S18244

Yuck

The kids actually love the Dung Beetles. The Black Fox shells are very well made. You can occasionally find them on the big auction site.
If only the School for Scoundrels Perfect Peas came in brown or black!

Dr Dee, I found another insect trick... It is called "WOW" METAMORPHOSIS by Garvey and Alexander. Copyright 1984
On business card stock 4 caterpillers and 4 cocoons are shown. The caterpillars then change into butterflies.