LIVERMORE – Incoming kindergartners peered at a live beetle inside a bug house and at bug specimens as they passed the items around a classroom on Monday.

The starting day of school is Wednesday, Aug. 29, for kindergarten through grade 9, but these children were learning some of the rules of kindergarten early, so learning can begin in-depth when opening day arrives.

Most of the children will know each other and their teachers by then and will be more familiar with the school, buses and playground.

Kindergarten teacher Becky Poat told the children she caught a beetle on the floor Monday morning and put it in a bug house for them to look at.

“You just want to look at him,” she said. “Don’t shake him up.”

The children sat on the floor in a circle, not quite still but working on it, as they passed and looked at butterfly specimens, bug catchers and bug houses and other science-related items.

Poat explained how passing would work.

She would count to three and then say “pass” and that meant whatever it was they were holding was to be passed to the person next to them.

“1, 2, 3, pass,” Poat said. “We’ll get all practiced for the year.”

Fellow teacher Tabbatha Cushman worked with Poat, and teacher Mary Stevens worked with students in another classroom to prepare them for the school year.

After several minutes of looking, Poat asked “Are you ready for new stuff?”

Then she took more specimens, including monarch and viceroy butterflies and other items, from a large tray and passed them out.

She taught the youngsters how to use a lighted microscope on the specimens.

Alex Frost was looking at a butterfly specimen and smiling.

“It flies,” he said.

After more passing, it was time to learn how to climb the two stairs to the sink and get a drink from the fountain there.

“You can’t all fit up here at once – one at a time,” Poat said. “There is not enough room for more than one, and someone might fall off.”

After that lesson was over, it was time to build a bug house out of a plastic cup, thin netting material and an elastic.

“I won’t start until everybody is listening” Poat said, trying to get the group’s attention. “I need everybody to look at me, otherwise some will say they don’t know what to do.”

Poat gave the children the guidelines – cups don’t go on your mouth and don’t break them – as she and Cushman passed out materials.

Once they were done with the houses, they planned to go out on the playground to look for bugs.

“Mrs. Poat found a bug today, maybe you’ll find a bug, too,” Poat told the children.

Katelynn Ladd’s mother, Jody Ladd, a 2nd-grade teacher at the school, came in to see how her daughter was doing.

It’s her first experience of going through the kindergarten process, she said.

“I’m excited, but apprehensive,” she said. “My first baby is in school. I’m really torn. I’m extremely excited and very proud, but I’m a little sad and a little bit reminiscent.”