A washable ink pad, printable bug guides, and ten fingertips. Kids press a print, add legs with a pen, and end up with a page full of ladybirds, bees and beetles that are entirely theirs.
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I bought the ink pad for a rainy Tuesday and it has outlived every craft kit in this house.
The first bug my son made was a fingerprint with eight wobbly legs and he was so proud of it that we put it on the fridge for a month.
What I love is how little it needs. A pad, a pen, a piece of paper — and a child who has just realised their own finger makes a shape nobody else can make.
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Print the guide cards and the garden scene page, and put the ink pad in the middle of the table with the damp cloth beside it.
Show one bug first: press a fingertip on the pad, press it on the paper, let it dry for a moment, then add six legs and two antennae.
Let them copy the guides — ladybird, bee, beetle, caterpillar, spider — and then invent bugs that do not exist. This is the good part.
Fill the garden scene page together: a caterpillar made of five prints in a row along a leaf, a bee above the flowers.
Look at a fingerprint through the magnifying glass and find the loops. Compare yours with theirs.
Take the bug hunt tally sheet outside and count what you actually find in the garden.
Pin the finished page up at their eye height, not yours.
Fingerprint bug cards (A4 PDF)
Step-by-step guides for ladybird, bee, beetle, caterpillar and spider, plus a garden scene to fill and a bug hunt tally sheet.
Washable rainbow ink pad on Amazon
A single rainbow pad gives every colour without swapping pads, and washable ink comes off little hands with soap and water.
Want more? Browse all our free printables for kids.
Check that the ink says washable before you buy — the permanent pads stain fingers for two days. Keep the damp cloth on the table from the start, not in the kitchen, or you will be chasing coloured handprints down the hallway.
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