If you follow this blog, you’ve likely noticed that we have a lot of pets. We love animals. We have two cats, two rats, and pet fish. I don’t often mention the other ones. We also have two bins full of red wriggler worms.
Now, red wriggler worms are also known as compost worms. We use them in two bins on our upstairs deck that we have to collect our compost. Unfortunately, since we are in a townhouse we are not allowed to compost outdoors. Worm bins are it for us. They involve a fair bit of maintenance, which is the not-so-fun part for adults. However, for kids, worm bins are amazing.
Every time we have food scraps, we can go upstairs and use them to feed the worms. We place the scraps under a blanket of shredded paper so that they don’t attract flies. Over time, we rotate the location so that the worms get full coverage across the top of the bin, but it’s amazing how quickly these little worms will eat the food scraps.
My daughter loves to hold the worms. She thinks that worms are cool. I’m not so sure that the worms enjoy being held, but if she moistens her hand they tend to be all right for a few minutes. There are also egg cases in the bin, and these are fascinating to look at.
A worm bin is an intriguing experience for a child. Not only does it introduce children to invertebrates (aka bugs) in a very positive way, it’s also a good lesson in recycling. Food scraps go in, soil for the garden comes out. It works well, as long as you maintain it. And believe me, with a preschooler who’s keen to feed the worms, maintaining a worm bin isn’t much of a problem.
Does your preschooler love bugs?