Category: Grade School

Rainbows Day 2 -God’s Promise

 Today we learned why we have rainbows.  We reviewed the story of Noah’s Ark focusing on the end where they have the promise from God to never destroy the earth again with a flood.  We played with some Noah’s Ark toys and did some Noah’s Ark Crafts..  We also has some more yummy rainbows and did some more science experiments (the kids favorite).

God’s Promise

Discuss: Genesis 9:13 “I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is a sign of my covenant with you and all the earth.”

After a year of floating, the ark was finally on dry ground. Just a few minutes before, it was filled with growling, barking, honking, purring animals. Now the giant boat sat on a mountain top with the door wide open, the boat was all empty and quiet. All the animals had rushed out the door to fill the earth again. So what was Noah doing? He was gathering rocks. He was so thankful to be alive, he was building an altar to God. So Noah piled up the rocks to build a fire on them. This was the sacrifice Noah offered to God to thank him for saving him and his family. God was pleased with Noah’s sacrifice. But most of all, God was pleased that Noah was truly thankful. So God made a promise to Noah, “Never again will I destroy the world with a flood. I make this covenant with you and with all creatures. From this day on, there will always come a time for planting, and a time for gathering up what was planted. Day will always follow night, the warm days of summer will always follow the cold and snow of winter, as long as the earth shall be.” So God blessed Noah and his family. He told them to have many children to fill the earth with people again. He gave them the plants and the animals for food. Then God said to Noah, “Look up in the sky.” Noah looked up. The bright sun was shining, God made a brilliant rainbow appear. God said to Noah, “You see, I have set my rainbow in the sky. This will be the sign of the covenant I have made with you and all creatures, never again to destroy the earth by a flood. It will always remind us of the promise between you and me.” So, the next time you see a rainbow, you can think of Noah and the flood. Remember that God loves you, and that no matter how bad the storm, there will always come a bright new day. That is God’s promise, and God always keeps his promises.

Read: The First Rainbow By Su Box

Comprehension Questions:

  1. How many animals did God send to Noah on the ark? Two of every animal. (boy and girl)
  2. What did God send as a promise to Noah after they got off of the ark? (A rainbow)

Noah’s Rainbow

Materials:

  • 2 paper plates
  • paint
  • paintbrushes
  • Animals and Noah  (I used some that I had from a coloring book)
  • Scissors
  • Glue

Directions:

  1. First, cut one of the paper plates in half and let your child paint one piece brown.
  2. Paint a rainbow on the top 3/4 of the other plate. 
  3. Color all of the Noah animals and cut them out.
  4. Once everything is dry, staple the brown plate to the rainbow plate so that the rainbow is showing.

Noah’s Ark Play

Discuss: God sent the animals to Noah’s ark 2 by 2 (a boy and a girl).

Directions:

  1. Set up the Little People Ark and put Noah on it.
  2. Line up the animals outside the ark 2 by 2.
  3. Children can count by 2’s to see how many animals are on this ark.

Noah’s Ark ABC Puzzle 

We have a wooden Noah’s Ark puzzle that lines the animals up in ABC order.

Rainbow Lorikeet

Discuss:

This is truly where a picture is better than a thousand words. There intense colors have patches of emerald green, orange midnight blue, dull blue, ruby red,lemon yellow, purple, violet greenish gray. They are a small bird generally 11 to 12 inches long, on average females are generally a bit smaller and younger birds have duller markings. They are said to live over 20 years in the wild. Their vocalization is varied from “screeching” in flight to “chatting” during feeding.

                     

Rainbow Bible Verse

Read and talk about the verse with your child. Have the child draw a rainbow over the verse with crayons.

“I have placed my

rainbow in the clouds.

It is a sign of my covenant

with you and all the earth.”

Genesis 9:13

IMG_0Youngest child’s on the bottom up to the oldest child’s!539

Rainbow Jello

Ingredients:

  • Jello for each color of the rainbow
  • Knox gelatin (6 envelopes)
  • Jello mold or Clear cups

Directions:

  1. Mix the purple jello with an envelope of the knox gelatin.
  2. Pour in two cups of boiling water. Dissolve the gelatin.
  3. Add 1/2 cup of ice. Stir until thick.
  4. Remove any remaining ice cubes and any bubbles that may have formed.
  5. Pour a little into each clear cup and/or mold. Let set in the refrigerator.
  6. Repeat with the blue jello and pour it over the set purple (and then the other colors).

Changing Daisies

Discuss: As the colored water is absorbed, the children will be able to see how the water is absorbed into the plant and will be amazed when the petals of the carnation change color.

Materials:

  • Food Coloring (each color of the rainbow)
  • Water
  • 6 Clear Glasses
  • 6 White Daisies

Directions:

  1. Place 1 tablespoon food coloring and quarter cup of water in each glass.
  2. Place 1 stem of daisies in each glass and wait for a couple of hours.
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More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbows Day 1 -Colors

We spent the first day of our rainbow unit study learning the colors of the rainbow.  We had fun with baking, crafts, reading, science experiments, similes, and math.  The favorite activity for the kids today was definitely the rainbow flower cookies that we made.  The three older kids can now recite all the colors of the rainbow.

Colors of the Rainbow

Discuss: What are the colors in the rainbow? (ROY G. BIV) Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Purple. Newton added indigo and orange to give a total of 7 colors similar to the number of notes in a musical scale and number of days in a week. Indigo is not really a color. It is a shade between blue and violet. Many people omit indigo from the rainbow spectrum because it is not a color and is hard for the human eye to distinguish between the blue and violet.

Read: Liz Makes a Rainbow by Tracey West

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What are the colors of the rainbow? Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple
  2. What is shade of color between blue and purple sometimes called? Indigo

Ordinal Numbers

Directions:

Give the child a blank rainbow and have him listen and follow the directions below as you read them.

Start at the top and color the first arc red.                    Color the fifth arc blue.

Color the fourth arc green.                                           Color the third arc yellow.

Color the second arc orange.                                      Color the sixth arc purple.


Rainbow Color Matching


Make a large rainbow out of poster board.  Place the rainbow on the floor with small items of each color in a basket.  The child places each item on the appropriate colored arc.

Rainbow Similes

Read: What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz

Discuss: A simile is a figure of speech consisting of a comparison of 2 objects using like or as. Similes tell you what something is LIKE. Similes are in What Makes a Rainbow? “Red LIKE a ladybugs wings.”

Materials:

  • Poster Board
  • Markers or Crayons
  • Printing Paper

Directions:

  1. Pick a color. Describe the color by answering the following…
  2. Tastes like
    Smells like
    Sounds like
    Looks like
    Hot like
    Cold like
  3. Tell in a sentence or group of sentences what this color looks like, sounds like, etc…
  4. Lightly sketch an outline of a large rainbow on the poster board.
  5. Write our poems in the stripes exactly how the children dictate it to you.
  1. Kids can make a smaller version of the Simile Rainbow on a piece of paper.
  2. Kids write the word color over and over for each arc in the rainbow.
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Rainbow Pudding Cups

Ingredients:

  • 6 packages of different colored Jello (purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red.)
  • 6 Cups of Vanilla Ice Cream
  • 6 Cups of Hot Water.
  • Clear glasses
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Directions:

  1. Follow the instructions on the back of the jello box, but instead of adding a cup of cold water, you add a cup of ice cream.
  2. Make sure you pour the pudding in a clear glass, and let each layer set up in the refrigerator before you add the next layer.  
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Rainbow Puzzles


I print off page 8 of this Rainbow Download and let the children cut them out and place them together.

Cotton Ball Rainbow

Materials:

  • Cotton balls
  • White paper cut in a cloud “shape”
  • Construction paper in each color of the rainbow
  • Glue

Directions:

  1. Give child the cloud shape.
  2. Cover the bottom of the cloud with glue.
  3. Child places color paper at the bottom of the cloud.
  4. Add additional glue all over the paper cloud.
  5. Place cotton balls to add “fluff.”

Planting A Rainbow

Read: Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

Materials:

  • Sugar Cookie Dough
  • Food Coloring
  • Unsweetened cocoa powder
  • Sucker Sticks

Directions:

  1. Divide the dough into 7 parts (one for each color and one for the flower centers)
  2. Color the dough with the food coloring (red, orange, yellow, green blue, purple)
  3. Add a tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder to the dough, for the brown, flower centers.
  4. Roll the dough into 1/2 inch balls.
  5. Place colored balls around the centers, to form flowers, on a greased cookie sheet. Press them together a little, so they stick to each other. T thought he was playing with play dough!
  6. Add a sucker, pushing it through the dough into the center of the flower. 
  7. Bake as normal for sugar cookies (350 degrees Fahrenheit for 10-12 minutes).

Baking Soda & Vinegar

Discuss: When the baking soda and the vinegar mix they create an acid-base reaction and the two chemicals work together to create a gas (the bubbles).  Observe the 3 states of matter: the baking soda is the solid, the vinegar is the liquid, and the bubbles is the gas.

Materials:

  • baking soda
  • vinegar
  • spoons
  • clear cups or containers
  • food coloring
  • a tray to hold any spills

Directions:

  1. Add a few drops of food color to each spoon.
  2. Fill the rest of each spoon with baking soda.
  3. Add ¼ to ½ cup of vinegar to each cup.
  4. Choose a spoon and stir it into one cup of vinegar.
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More rainbow fun that we had this week:

Rainbow Unit Study

In this unit study we learned all about rainbows. This unit has 5 days worth of lessons. We did this unit study with cousins, from tots to 1st grade, but it would be great for Preschool age. This unit study was tons of fun for the cousins, but I guess cousins are always ton of fun whatever their doing!  I made a lapbook for each child with their work from the unit so that they could go back and remember what they learned.

Day 1 Colors of the Rainbow

Day 2 God’s Promise

Day 3 The Color Wheel

Day 4 Double Rainbows

Day 5 What Makes a Rainbow

Rainbow Book List

Book can be read by the child or by the parent to the child, depending on the child’s reading level.

Books I used in the lessons… 

Liz Makes a Rainbow by Tracey West

The First Rainbow By Su Box

Take a Walk on a Rainbow by Miriam Moss

All the Colors of the Rainbow by Allan Fowler

What Is a Rainbow? By Chris Arvetis and Carole Palmer

What Makes a Rainbow? by Betty Ann Schwartz

A Rainbow of My Own by Don Freeman

I can eat a Rainbow by Annabel Karmel

Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert

Other age appropriate books…

Noah’s Ark by Barbara Shook Hazen and Diane Muldrow

Singing with Noah by Cissy Padgett

The Rainbow Mystery by Jennifer Dussling

Duckie’s Rainbow by Frances Barry

On Noah’s Ark by Jan Brett

Elmer and the Rainbow by David McKee

The Magic School But Makes a Rainbow by Joanna Cole

Over the Rainbow by Judy Collins

Song List

Roy G Biv by They Might be Giants

Video List 

  • Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That! (Season 1 Episode 16) 
  • Elmo’s Rainbow 
  • The Magic School Bus Makes A Rainbow

Here are some of our other Elementary Unit Studies:

Ants Day 6 -Ant Enemies

Today brings us to the end of our ant unit study.  We learned about a few ant enemies, did some literary activities, had more fun with homophones, and ate ants on a log.  We learned a lot about ants this week and had a lot of fun in the process.

Ant Enemies

Discuss:

Anteater- The anteater’s tongue can reach two feet in length, and only 1/2 inch wide. The anteater can cover its tongue in a sticky saliva, allowing the ants to stick to it’s tongue. It can extend and withdraw it’s tongue up to 150 times per minute. When hunting for food, anteaters will use their sharp claws to tear open anthills or rotting wood that might contain ants or termites. Since their eye-sight is poor, they use their noses to smell for food. Then they use their long snouts and tongues to scoop up as many ants and termites as possible. Since they don’t have teeth, they can’t chew the insects. Instead, they swallow them whole. As they eat, they also swallow small pebbles and other debris. These pebbles help them digest the insects by grinding them in the stomach.

Woodpecker- Woodpeckers like to eat ants too. They peck them off of the trees when they climb.

Ant Lion- the ant lion digs a circular sand pit and waits at the bottom. When an ant looks into the pit, the ant lion tosses sand into the air to trip up the ant. The ant stumbles into the pit, and the ant lion grabs it with its large pincers.

Read: Giant Anteater by Sara Antill

Comprehension Questions:

  1. Name an animal that eats ants? Anteater, woodpecker, ant lion
  2. How does the anteater find the ants? The anteater smells the ants.
  3. Why do the ants fall into the ant lion’s pit? The ant lion tosses sand into the air to trip the ant.

Ants on a Log

Ingredients:

  • Celery Sticks
  • Peanut Butter
  • Raisins

Directions:
1) Wash the celery
2) Spread peanut butter in u-shaped part of celery.
3) Press raisins into peanut butter.
4) Eat your Ants on a Log

Aunt Farm

Discuss:

Homophones are words that sound alike but have different meanings (ant the insect and Aunt your relative).

Read: Truman’s Aunt Farm by Jama Kin Rattigan

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What did Truman feed the aunts for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Rice pudding, jelly sandwiches and little hot dogs
  2. True or False; The aunts were not having fun and could not wait to get out of Truman’s house. False
  3. What did Truman’s sign say was the cost of each aunt? Free
  4. What did Aunt Fran get Truman for his birthday? Ant Farm
  5. What was in the package for Truman at the end of the story? Aunt Fran

Directions:

Ant and Aunt

An ant is a small insect that gets into food and usually lives underground.

Your aunt is a woman who is your Mother’s or Father’s sister.

Fill in each sentence with the correct ant or aunt.

  1. There is an ____________ in the sugar bowl.
  2. My brother has _____________’s in his pants.
  3. My ____________ is coming to visit us.
  4. I have an ____________ who lives far away.
  5. An ____________ has six legs.
  6. My friends gets birthday presents from two ____________’s.
  7. Does your _____________ live near here?
  8. There must be a hundred ______________s in that hill.
  9. Please get the ____________ off that cracker.

Write your own sentence using the words ant and aunt.

Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ants Day 5 -Types of Ants

For this day we learned a few different types of ants.  We also had fun with homophones and counting to 100.  The boys love the books that you can sing with, so I found the big book of The Ants Go Marching at the library for them.

Types of Ants

Discuss: There are over 10,000 kinds of ants. We will learn about a few of them today.Leafcutter Ant -Leafcutter ants are also known as fungus gardening ants. The leafcutter workers snip off pieces of the plant and carry the leaf bits back to their underground nest. Then the ants chew the leaves, and use the chewed up leaf bits as a substrate on which to grow fungus. The ants eat that fungus. When a queen begins a new colony, she brings a starter culture of fungus with her to the new nest site. 

Army Ant -Army ants are nomads. They don’t make permanent nests, but instead move into empty rodent nests or holes in the ground. Army ants are typically nocturnal, with nearly blind workers. These carnivores raid other ant nests at night, stinging their prey. When the queen begins laying new eggs and the larvae start pupating, the army ants have to stay in one place for a while. As soon as the eggs hatch and the new workers emerge, the colony moves on. When on the move, workers carry the colony’s young. 

Carpenter Ant -Carpenter ants don’t actually eat the wood like termites do, but they do excavate nests and tunnels in people’s homes. Carpenter ants prefer moist wood, so if you’ve had a leak or flood in your home, be on the lookout for them to move in. Carpenter ants aren’t always pests, though. They actually provide an important service in the ecological cycle as decomposers of dead wood. 

Slave Maker Ant -One method used by slavemaking ants is replacing the queen of the captive colony. The queen of an established slavemaking colony will lay eggs and produce new queens who then will leave the colony to develop their own colonies. The young slavemaking queen will wait outside of the colony she is leaving and follow a group of raiding slave makers into her new colony. As the worker slavemakers raid this new colony for eggs, the queen takes advantage of the battle by using it to sneak into the colony. Once she finds the other queen, she kills her and takes her place as the new queen. The new queen mimics the old queen by consuming pheromones from her body and releasing them to the attending ants. This new queen having mated with a slavemaking male ants earlier begins to lay new slavemakers eggs. Ant colonies invaded by slavemakers are quickly overcome and forced to support the slavemaking colony. 

Fire Ant -Fire ants defend their nests aggressively, and will swarm anything that they think is a threat. The bites and stings of fire ants are said to feel like you’re being set on fire – thus the nickname. Fire ants build mounds, usually in open, sunny places, so parks, farms, and golf courses are particularly vulnerable to fire ant infestations. 

Harvester Ant -Harvester ants inhabit deserts and prairies, where they harvest plant seeds for food. They store the seeds in underground nests. If the seeds get wet, the harvester ant workers will carry the food above ground to dry them and keep them from germinating. Like fire ants, harvester ants will defend their nest by inflicting painful bites and venomous stings. 

Read: Ant by Rebecca Stefoff

Comprehension Questions:

  1. Name a few different kinds of ants?
  2. What kind of ant have fungus gardens? Leafcutter Ants
  3. What kind of ant feels like your on fire when your bitten? Fire Ant

Different Kinds of Ants

We used page 5 of this download to review the Different Kinds of Ants.  Then we used pages 23 and 24 of the same download to make a Kinds of Ants Matchbook.

Ant Word Search

We used did the Ant Word Search for fun today.  Plus it has some interesting facts about Argentine Ants.

The Ants Go Marching

Read:  The Ants Go Marching! by Dan Crisp

Directions:

Use the Counting Practice worksheet for counting by 1’s through 10’s.

Ant Aunt Homophones

Discuss:

Homophones are words that sound alike but have different meanings (ant the insect and Aunt your relative).

Read: Dear Deer by Gene Barretta

Comprehension Questions:

1. Aunt Ant meets a moose. Can you think of a homophone for moose?

2. Aunt Ant sees a ewe. Can you think of a homophone for ewe?

3. Aunt Ant sees a horse. Can you think of a homophone for horse?

4. The bat hangs from his feet. Can you think of a homophone for feet?

5. The monkey hangs from his tale. Can you think of a homophone for tail?

6. Aunt Ant sees a doe. Can you think of a homophone for doe?

7. Aunt Ant shares a seesaw with a toad. Can you think of a homophone for toad?

8. Aunt Ant is looking at a great big whale. Can you think of a homophone for whale?

9. Aunt Ant is looking at a huge bear. Can you think of a homophone for bear?

10. Aunt Ant sees a bee fly away. Can you think of a homophone for bee?

 11. Aunt ant sees two gnus. Can you think of a homophone for gnus?

Activity:

We made homophone matches using clipart online. Split the matches between me and the J and have him pick up a card and tell me what it was… I respond by saying, “but I have_____”. He also liked playing memory with the homophone matches!

Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ants Day 4: Ant Colony

Today we learned about the ant colony and did a science experiment outside. J loves science so we try to fit it in everyday that we can. We also had a fun ant hill craft and snack. T loves snacks, but I try not to make too many sweet ones!

Ant Colony

Discuss: How an Ant Colony Starts:

1) After hot summer rain, a young queen takes off on her wedding flight. She flies into a cloud of male ants and mates in the air.

2) Afterward, all the males die, and the queen returns to the earth. She breaks her wings off by rubbing them on the ground.

3) Then she digs a hole in the soft, moist earth and starts laying eggs. She will never leave the nest again.

4) During the next 3 months, the eggs develop through four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult ant.

5) After they have hatched, the first workers assume the duties of the colony– searching for food and protecting the queen.

Most ant species build underground nests. Worker ants dig tunnels and chambers, in the soil. Workers add more tunnels and chambers to the nest, as the colony grows. If you watch ants closely, you will see that they really do communicate with each other! Ant colonies can grow to be quite large. Some tropical ants build downward to make more rooms. Their nests can reach twenty feet deep. A group of nests can cover an area as large as a tennis court. Millions of ants can live in the big nests.

Chambers-

  • The queen has her own chamber for laying eggs.
  • Some chambers are nurseries for the growing young ants.
  • Food is stored in other chambers.
  • Still other chambers are resting places for hard-working ants.

Read: Ant Cities by Arthur Dorros

Thinking Skills:

  1. In economics, what does it mean to be interdependent? People are interdependent when they depend on each other to provide the goods and services they use.
  2. In what way does an ant city illustrate interdependence? The ants in an ant city have certain jobs.They all depend on each other  for survival.
  3. What are some of the special jobs done by the ants? Queen – lays eggs; Workers – do all the work in the ant city and also fight to protect the nest
  4. What would happen if the different types of ants didn’t do their special jobs? The ants could not survive unless they worked together.
  5. What are some of the special jobs in your city or community that people do? Teachers, electricians, pastors, doctors, mail carriers, police officers, farmers, store owners, etc.
  6. How do these people in your community depend on one another? The people in the community have certain jobs. Then, they exchange the money they earn and pay others for the goods and services that are provided. All of us are interdependent in that we rely on others to provide most of the goods and services we use.
  7. Is it good to be interdependent? Specializing in production and then trading to get the goods and services one wants does make production more efficient, providing society with more goods and services. Usually, this is good for everyone. But sometimes interdependence can be troublesome. For example, our country relies heavily on oil produced from other countries. In most cases, that is not a problem, but when there is political instability, prices may rise dramatically and our dependence becomes very costly.

Ant Hill

Materials:

  • Brown Construction Paper
  • Black and White Paint
  • Paint Brush

Directions:

  1. Cut out the brown paper in the form of a hill.
  2. Paint black ant tunnels going down and side to side. Let it dry.
  3. Use your finger to make fingerprint ants with white paint on the black tunnels. Then J wanted to decide what room would be best for each of the ant rooms so I wrote down what he decided.
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Study Ants

Directions: Go for a walk and look for ants. What are they doing? Follow them back to their homes. 

Have the child divide the plate into fourths with a marker. 

Set out a plate of 4 different foods (9 pieces/ crumbs of each food) near the anthill (away from the house). Predict what they will like the best. 

At the end of the day go out and check up on the plate to see if any ants have come for a meal. What did they like best? 

We used this Ant Graph to record the results.

Ant Hill In A Cup

Materials:

  • Clear plastic cups
  • Chocolate pudding
  • Graham crackers
  • Ziploc bag
  • Chocolate sprinkles

Directions:

  1. First put a layer of chocolate pudding into the cup for the “dirt”.
  2. Then crush up graham crackers in a plastic ziploc bag and poured the crumbs into the cup for the anthill “sand”.
  3. Last, they added chocolate sprinkles for the “ants”.
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Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ants Day 3 -Ant Jobs

For today we learned about the different ant jobs.  We also studied Proverbs 6:6 and talked about working diligently.  We learned today with some literature, writing, math, crafts and a picnic lunch. The boys enjoy eating lunch outside.

Ant Jobs

Discuss: There are three main ant jobs; queen ant, worker ants, and male ants.

Queen Ant- Queen ant lays all the eggs and she is the mother of all the ants in the nest. All queens start out with wings. All have large abdomen’s to produce eggs. Some can lay millions of eggs per year.

Male Ants- All males have wings and do no work in the colony. They can be seen for only a few weeks in the summer while they mate with the queen.

Worker Ants- All workers are female, but they do not lay eggs. Females are the smallest ants, they do all the chores: clean the nest, gather food, take care of the babies and defend the colony. Some species such as carpenter ants and fire ants have several sizes of workers; the larger workers have different job duties than the smaller workers.

Worker Jobs- Workers have many different jobs to do. They begin their work by cleaning themselves. A couple days later they start sharing food and licking each other. Here are a some of the different jobs done by the worker ants.

Queen Tender- Young ants help the queen deliver her eggs by grabbing the eggs with their mandibles.

Nurse Ant- Young ants lick larvae so they do not dry out, and feed them so they grow.

Tunnel Diggers- Young ants dig tunnels and new chambers to store eggs and larvae and food.

Guard- These ants stand near the entrance of the nest, blocking strange ants from entering.

Foragers- The oldest ants search for food. Most foragers search within 50 feet of the nest, but if food is scarce, they may travel thousands of feet.

Read: Ant Colony by Kathy Furgang

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What are the three types of ants? Queen ant, male ants, worker ants
  2. What does the queen ant do? Lay the eggs
  3. What do the worker ants do? Take care of baby ants, dig tunnels, guard nest an forage for food

Things I Can Remember

We used the Things I Can Remember to Do Without Being Told ant writing paper for this activity.  We talked about how ants just know what to do, there is no one ant in charge.  Then we talked about what J could do without being told.

Aesop’s Fable: The Ant and The Grasshopper

Discuss:

In Bible times and pioneer days, almost every family had to plant a garden in the spring in order to have enough food for the next winter. Ants also work to prepare for future needs, gathering and storing food in warm weather, before winter comes.

It [the ant] has no commander, no overseer or ruler, the ant stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. (Proverbs 6:7)

Ants, known for being hard workers, are commended by God for their initiative. Ants have no leader—no commander to direct them, no overseer to inspect their work, no ruler to prod them on. People should learn from the ant and not act only when commanded.

Read: The Ant and the Grasshopper by Mark White

  • Who are the two characters in the story?
  • Why is the Ant working so hard?
  • Why is the grasshopper telling him to stop?
  • When winter comes what is the grasshopper’s problem?
  • How does he solve his problem?
  • What lesson does he learn from this experience?

Directions:

We used page 41 of this download for our Aesop’s Fable story.

Picnic Ant Place Mat

Read: Ants at the Picnic by Michael Dahl

Discuss:

  1. Fun Facts on page 24 of Ants at the Picnic by Michael Dahl
  2. Find the Numbers on page 24 of Ants at the Picnic by Michael Dahl
  3. Get your bag of tiny ants and estimate how many ants you have. Then counting ants by 10’s pull out a large quantity of plastic ants. Children take a handful of plastic ants and place them in groups of tens on the placemat, then record the number of ants.
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Materials:

  • Red and White Construction Paper
  • Black Paint
  • Black Marker
  • Clear Con-Tact Paper
  • Scissors

Instructions:
1. Fold the white paper in half and cut lines from the folded side to the other side (but stop cutting about an inch from the side). Cut lines about an inch apart.

2. Weave the red strips through the white strips of paper by going over the first piece then under the next piece and so on, alternating the rows. Keep the red pieces as close together as possible. 

3. Continue weaving your paper pieces until you have used all the red pieces of paper or until all of the white strips are full.

4. Add a couple of ants to your picnic place mat by dipping a fingertip into black paint and making three overlapping fingerprints to form an ant’s body. 

5. Let the paint dry and then use the black marker to draw on six legs and antennae.

6. Finish the place mat by cutting two pieces of clear Con-Tact paper so they are at least and in larger all around than your place mat. Pull the paper backing off of one piece of cut Con-Tact paper. Carefully lay this piece, sticky side down, on top of your place mat. Smooth out all air bubbles as you lay it down. Now, flip over your place mat and cover the backside. Trim the edges of the Con-Tact paper about half an inch bigger than the place mat. Your picnic place mat is now ready to use!

Then we had a picnic lunch!

Proverbs 6:6

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! (Proverbs 6:6)

  • Who wrote this verse? King Solomon
  • What does it mean? to be a hard worker like the ant
  • Does God want us to walk on all fours like ants do? no
  • What can we learn from ants? to work hard with no one telling us what to do

Physical traits describe someone’s appearance (tall, skinny, blue-eyed, curly-haired, petite, etc.). Character traits describe someone’s personality (brave, stubborn, hard worker, polite, shy, etc.). What do you think God wants us to learn about ants? Physical traits or character traits?

 Directions:  We used our Bible and page 26 from this download for our Proverbs 6:6 Bible verse.

Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ants Day 2 -Ant Life Cycle

Today we learned about the life cycle of an ant.  We also learned about an ant year and played a math game.  T liked playing with those tiny plastic ants that I found.  He seems to like bugs more than J does.  I’m glad he doesn’t take after his Mama, I can’t stand them!

Ant Life Cycle

Discuss: Life Cycle:

Egg – queen ants lay tiny oval shaped eggs

Larva – worm like larva keep growing causing their skin to shed; they don’t have eyes or legs

Pupa – once the larva reaches a certain size, it spins a cocoon and pupates; during the time in the cocoon, the ant’s body changes to adult form

Adult – the pupa emerges out of the cocoon into an adult nt

A worker ant generally lives about four years. However, the queen can live up to 10 or 20 years!

Read: The Life Cycle of an Ant by Trevor terry & Margaret Linton

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What are the four stages of the ant life cycle? Egg, larva, pupa, adult
  2. Who lays the eggs? Queen ant
  3. What is an ant larva like? Don’t have eyes or legs
  4. What happens in the pupa stage? Ant larva spins a cocoon to change to an adult

Ant Life Cycle Activity


Discuss:  The life cycle of the ant consists of four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Fertilized eggs produce female ants (queens, workers, or soldiers); unfertilized eggs produce male ants.

EGG- Ant eggs are oval shaped and tiny (they are on the order of 1 mm long, but the queen’s egg is many times larger).

LARVA- The worm-like larvae have no eyes and no legs; they eat food fed to them by adult ants. The larvae molt (shed their skin) many times as they increase in size.

PUPA- After reaching a certain size, the larva spins a silk-like cocoon around itself and pupates. During this time the body metamorphoses (changes) into its adult form.

ADULT The pupa emerges as an adult. The entire life cycle usually lasts from 6 to 10 weeks. Some queens can live over 15 years, and some workers can live for up to 7 years.

Directions:  We used the Ant Life Cycle print out for a review.

The Ant Year: A Year in the Life of an Ant

April – open nest

May – time to mate and lay eggs

June – larvae grows and grows

August – work, work, work

November through March – hibernation

We made a book on page 35 of this download for our A Year in the Life of an Ant activity.

Ants Go Marching in a Number Line

Materials:

  • A die labeled with +1, +2, +3, -1, -2, -3
  • Little plastic ants
  • A number line that goes as high as you need

Directions:

  1. Each player puts their counter at the beginning of the number line at 0
  2. The players take turns rolling the die/cube and moving their counter along the number line by the number rolled on the die/cube. (Player says the number square he is on and then says +3 if that is what he rolls and says the answer.) If a player lands in the same box as another player, the other player goes back a space.
  3. The first player to reach the end of the number line wins!

Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ants Day 1 -Ant Anatomy

For our fist day of our ant unit study we studied ant anatomy.  We learned that like all insects ants have 3 main body parts; head, thorax, and abdomen.  We made a craft, played with math, read some books, and had some writing activities.

Ant Anatomy

Discuss: Ants are usually 2-7mm long. Ants, like all insects, have 6 jointed legs, three body parts (the head, thorax and abdomen), a pair of antennae, and a hard exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is made up of a material that is like our fingernails. Ants can be many colors from yellow to brown to red to black.

HEAD

Feelers or Antennae – to touch and smell with

Mandibles (jaws) – to carry, dig, defend and eat with

Compound eyes -to see many of the same thing with

Brain – to process with (ants have the largest brain among all insects)

THORAX (OR TRUNK)

6 legs – with a sharp claw on each end

Tarsi (feet) – small hooks on feet to help the ant walk up trees

ABDOMEN (OR METASOMA)

Stinger – the common Black Ants and wood Ants have formic acid instead

2 stomachs – one for the ant and one for the colony

Scent gland – emits chemical odors that the ant uses to mark trails

Read: Tiny Workers by Nancy Loewen

Comprehension Questions:

  1. What are the three body parts of an ant (and all insects)? Head, thorax and abdomen
  2. What are the mandibles used for? to carry, dig, defend and eat with
  3. How many legs does an ant have? Six
  4. What are the ants antennae used for? To touch, smell, talk and feel with

Clothespin Ant

Discuss:

An ant has 3 body parts head, thorax, and abdomen. On the head are the feelers or antennae for touching and smelling with. The head also has compound eyes which have many tiny lenses. The thorax has 6 legs with a sharp claw on each end and these help the ant climb better and run fast.

Materials:

  • Black paint
  • paintbrush
  • clothespin
  • black pipe cleaner
  • 3 large black buttons
  • glue
  • googly eyes

Directions:

  1. Paint your clothespin black.
  2. Thread a 4-inch-long black pipe cleaner stems through the two holes of a large black button.
  3. Twist and curl the ends of pipe cleaner stems where they meet to form antennae.
  4. Glue googly eyes just below the antennae.
  5. Next, cut three 3-inch pieces of black pipe cleaner for each pair of legs.
  6. Have your child help you thread all three though the spring hole in the clothespin and adjust to form the legs.
  7. Glue the face and two more black buttons to the top of the clothespin.  

Ant Anatomy

Review:

HEAD

Feelers or Antennae – to touch and smell with

Pinchers – to carry, dig, defend and eat with

Compound eyes – to see many of the same thing with

Brain – the better to process with

THORAX

6 legs with a sharp claw on each end

ABDOMEN

Poison sac

Stinger – the common Black Ants and wood Ants have formic acid instead

2 stomachs – one for me and one for the colony

Directions:  We used the Ant Anatomy Activity sheet to help with this review.

Adding Ants

Directions:

  1. Use a piece of construction paper to write the combination answer in the middle circle (6),
  2. and all the “legs” are the possible ways you could reach that number (2+4, 4+2, 6+0, 33+3, 1+5, 1+5)
  3. Use tiny plastic ants to help demonstrate each combination.

Ant Talk

Discuss:  Ants express themselves by using these senses.

TOUCH- Ants tap one another with their antennae to announce the discovery of food and to ask for food.

SMELL- They emit pheromones that other ants smell through their antennae. This warns them of danger, says hello, or helps others to work harder.

SOUND- When they are trapped, they rub the joint between their waist and abdomen to make a squeaky sound that other ants hear through their legs.

TASTE- They exchange food with other ants mouth to mouth. This sharing of nutrition and chemicals says, “We’re Family!”

Directions:  We used page 36 and 37 of this download for our Ant Talk activity.

Here are the other days of our Ant Unit Study:

Ant Unit Study

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

Ant Unit Study

In this unit study we learned about ant anatomy, the ant life cycle, ant jobs, ant colonies, types of ants, and ant enemies. We spent some time outside for this unit study so I would recommend doing it during nicer weather.  I did this unit study with my 1st grader and I recommend it for Kindergarten to 3rd grade.

Day 1 Ant Anatomy

Day 2 Ant Live Cycle

Day 3 Ant Jobs

Day 4 Ant Colony

Day 5 Types of Ants

Day 6 Ant Enemies

 

Ant Book List 

Book can be read by the child or by the parent to the child, depending on the child’s reading level.

Books I used in the lessons…

Tiny Workers by Nancy Loewen

The Life Cycle of an Ant by Trevor terry & Margaret Linton

Ant Colony by Kathy Furgang

Ant Cities by Arthur Dorros

Ant by Rebecca Stefoff

Giant Anteater by Sara Antill

Dear Deer by Gene Barretta

The Ant and the Grasshopper by Mark White

The Ants go Marching! By Dan Crisp

Ants at the Picnic by Michael Dahl

Truman’s Aunt Farm by Jama Kin Rattigan

Other age appropriate books…

The Ants Go Marching One by One by Richard Bernal

One Hundred Hungry Ants by Elinor J. Pinczes

The Magic School But Gets Ants in its Pants by Joanna Cole

Little Black Ant on Park Street by Janet Halfmann

Look Inside an Ant Nest by Megan Cooley Peterson

What’s it like to be an Ant? By Jinny Johnson

Ant by Karen Hartley and Chris Macro

Ant Webvideos:

VeggieTales: School House Polka – YouTube

http://www.slideshare.net/bright9977/12-life-lessons-from-tiny-ants-7173883 (12 slides about ants)

Ant Movies:

The Magic School Bus Gets Ants In It’s Pants by Scholastic

Here are some of our other Elementary Unit Studies:

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