Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Well, I'll admit, it's been a while. I have been running around like a crazy person this summer and haven't had much time to blog. Now that the summer is coming to a close, I wanted to write about some of the fun things we did this summer.
This summer, we learned all about nature beginning with one of my favorite subjects: BUGS!
We learned all about these creepy crawlies and what makes them tick. We practiced our drawing skills by drawing pictures of bugs, tried (unsuccessfully) to create an ant farm, and made our own awesome diagrams of the inner workings of an ant mound.
Prior to working on the diagram, I showed the children pictures of the inside of an ant mound and how the different chambers served various functions. I kept it pretty simple: Worker aunts are at the top of the nest bringing in food for the queen and rest of the colony. Just below the workers live the larvae. The queen is in a chamber in the center of the nest, and food storage is at the bottom.
Here is what we did...
Materials:
- Peel and stick shelf liner paper
- Construction paper
- Crayons or markers
I took various colored pieces of construction paper and pre-cut them
into various sizes of ovals and tunnels. I taped the sticky paper up on the wall with the sticky side out, and organized the children into teams of two. Then, I invited them to stick the construction paper tunnels and ovals onto the paper connecting the tunnels and chambers (i.e. ovals) any way they wished. Finally, we drew in pictures of aunts, larvae, the queen, and food stores. I think they turned out great!
