Dear parents,
We read the poem Ant City and thought about ants. We talked about what observing meant and while outside we looked for and observed ants. The children said: “We found a whole family!”, “Going down that hole!”, “He’s crawling to eat some food.”, “Why that one went in his home?”,
“They’re crawling.”, and “He just touched together.” The entire list is in the classroom. When outside on Tuesday, the children noticed many, many more ants than the day before. Someone said, “There are a 100 thousand!”
We reread The 512 Ants Of Sullivan Street. After reading the children wondered if we could see inside of an ant hole. Someone said, “No, because it’s too dark.” Other children thought maybe we could shine a flashlight in the hole, when outside we tried but couldn’t see much.
We played Ant Ant Hole, instead of Duck Duck Goose. The children thought of it because during our observations the last two days we have seen ants going in holes. We decided to crawl like ants instead of running. A much slower, sillier, version of the game.
We made ants on a log for snacks. The children smeared peanut butter on pretzels and let the ant raisins crawl on. We made so many ants on a log we had some for snacks, more after lunch, and then again after quiet time. In the yard we have been digging, swinging, finding many insects, and some are finding new stunts to do on the jungle gym.
Molly started tilling the dirt for our new grass. She pulled up a giant root which several children carried around for about twenty minutes. It was long enough for six or seven children to hold!
While people drummed in music with Alex, the rest of us searched books for pictures of ants. An ant has three body parts. We practiced repeating the names of the parts aloud many days to save it to memory. We thought about how we could make ants. We happened to have some black clay and tiny leg-like pipe-cleaners that were perfect. The children set to work creating ants, though some thought theirs looked like spiders. Either way, they’re crawling around the classroom now.
We’ve been able to eat lunch outside on many warm days.
Thanks for sharing your wonderful children with us! It is a joy to spend the days with them.
Have a finally spring weekend,
Therese