Ant Farm Fun

· Large mason jars

· Black construction paper

· Toilet paper rolls

· Tape

· Sand

· Dirt from ant hill

· 2 large sponges (cut into smaller pieces for ant farms)

· headbands- 1 per student

· pipe cleaners (use the kind that alternate skinny and fat in thickness)

· thick transparencies

· straws- 1 per student

· gauze – 1 small piece per student

· modeling clay – 2 small pieces per student

· vanilla

· 1 posterboard

· crackers

· Honey I Shrunk the Kids movie

· Yarn

· Drawing paper

· White paper

· Two Bad Ants by Chris VanAllsburg

· Large butcher paper

· Thin dowels

· Sugar cubes

· Model ant cutouts

· Rulers

Overview:

· Movie clip and Antennae

· Ant Highways

· Bug Vacuum

· Ant Food Experiment

· Colony Set up

· Ant Collecting

· Colony Set Up

· Read Two Bad Ants

· Sugar Cube Scale Activity

· Ant Songs and Poems

Activities:

Activity 1: Movie clip from “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”

· The clip is from when the kids are trapped in the backyard and the ant helps them get to safety.

· Discuss movie clip and introduce ants

· Make ant antennae

· Each student will be provided with one skinny plastic headband

· Each student will also receive two chenille pipe cleaners (the ones that alternate skinny/fat)

· The students will connect the pip cleaners to the headbands and roll up the tops of the pipe cleaners to look like antennae

· Students will be allowed to wear these the remainder of the day

Activity 2: Ant Highways and drawing from an ant's perspective

· Find an area where ants are exploring (not traveling in lines)

· Students place yarn where the ant travels (the "ant highway")

· After 3-5 minutes students draw the "ant highway" and its surroundings on paper

· Students choose one place on the "ant highway" and draw what they think the ant sees from that point (students explore the view at this point from a variety of perspectives including getting down on the ground at eye level)

Activity 3: Follow Me (ant line experiment -adapted from Janice VanCleave's "Insects

and Spiders" page 61)

· Find an ant line for every group of 4 students

· Place an 8 1/2 X 11 piece of paper somewhere in the line

· Allow approximately 5 minutes for the ant line to move over the paper

· Remove the paper from the line

· Observe ant behavior after the paper is removed

· Discuss ant use of pheromones in following each other

· A trail of vanilla must be prepared shortly before needed. In a wooded area, squirt vanilla about 4-5ft. high on tree trunks about 10ft. apart to create a trail.

· Explain to students that they will be like the ants and use their sense of smell to follow a trail

· Take students to the beginning of the trail and allow 15-20mins. for them to find their way

Activity 4: Bug Vacuum

· You will need to have some plastic, fairly thick, pre-cut plastic or transparency sheets

· The students will roll the plastic into a cylinder and tape together using clear packing tape

· Next give the students two straws and some clay

· Tell the students to make two balls out of the clay, then smash them so ugh the other straw.

· Students can then practice using the vacuum outside.

Activity 5: Follow Me (ant food experiment -adapted from Janice VanCleave's "Insects and Spiders" page 60-61) *Set-up experiment before lunch and observe after lunch

· Find an anthill

· Lay poster board on the ground with one end close to the entrance of the anthill

· Secure the paper with rocks

· Crumble the cracker on the end of the paper opposite the entrance of the anthill

· From a distance, watch the ants and cracker crumbs for 5mins. or more

· Return after 1 hour and again observe the ants and cracker crumbs

Activity 6, Part 1: Collecting Ants

· Students can use their vacuum to collect ants and the dirt they found them in

· The dirt and ants can be dumped into a zip-lock baggie to take back inside

· Make sure the students get enough dirt to fill the jar

Activity 6, part 2: Make An Ant Farm! (from "Entomological Society of America's seasonal lessons and activities")

· Fill the soft drink can with sand and seal the opening with tape

· Put the can into the glass jar, the sealed can forces the ants to build tunnels near the outside of the jar where they can be seen.

· Fill the rest of the glass jar with dirt and ants (ants can be collected using the vacuum made in Activity 4)-do not pack the dirt too tightly but fill the entire jar

· Place a small piece of wet sponge on top of the soft drink can, and be sure to keep it moist

· Close the jar with the lid after punching small holes in the lid or with a piece of cloth secured with a rubber band to be sure that the ants cannot crawl out.

· Tape black paper over the outside of the jar so that the ants will tunnel against the dark sides of the jar.-it may take a week for the complex tunnels to really begin developing and paper can be removed for short periods to observe these tunnels

· --Students feed the ants by placing food scraps on top of the dirt (try sugar water, dry pet food, and pieces of fruit)

Activity 7: "Two Bad Ants" by Chris VanAllsberg

· Read and discuss book

Activity 8: Ant Scale

· Show students the page in "Two Bad Ants" where the ants fall into the sugar bowl. Talk about perspective and scale.

· Compare a real ant to a sugar cube

· Compare and measure a real ant and the model ant

· Determine scale

· Measure the sugar cube and using the scale of the real ant to the model ant determine the size of the model sugar cube.

· Build the model sugar cube using white butcher paper and small dowels and/or craft sticks for support

Activity 9: Ant songs and poems

Students will create some poems about ants