A great informational book about ants is "Ant Cities" by Arthur Dorros. It talked about various kinds of ants and the jobs they do in order to keep their ant cities alive.
We also read a cute fictional book called "Ant and Honey Bee What a Pair!" by Megan McDonald, a short books titled "Can an Ant Carry Me?" by Meg Greve, and another great informational book called "Bugs Are Insects" by Anne Rockwell.
One interesting fact that we read about in the "Bugs Are Insects" book was that all bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs. Did you know that?! I sure didn't. I thought the word "bug" and "insect" could be used interchangeably, but that's just not so. So it isn't just the kids who are learning new things in these lessons we're doing!
We discussed briefly the life cycle of an ant, and we also talked about how to determine if something is an insect by counting its legs (6 of them) and the parts of its body (3 of those).
After having our Ants on a Log snack, in the shape of an "I", for Insects of course...
...we headed outside to go on an insect hunt. I gave each child a container and we caught various bugs in them and observed them for a few minutes before letting them go again. We found all kinds of insects..
ants...
bumblebees...
Monarch butterflies...
other kinds of moths and butterflies...
and even some other name-unknown insects...
I had the chance to explain to the kids the concept of camouflage because of this insect that looked just like the tree trunk.
We even saw a couple of these big arachnids hanging out in their webs, and discussed how they are not insects because they actually have 2 parts to their body, and 8 legs.(I'll admit it, I find these creature to be pretty gross, but my kids sure enjoyed observing them, so that's what matters most!)
More on insects next week!
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