A is for Ants

Yesterday was the first day of school for us. We dropped off my 6-year-old for his first day of first grade, then it was time for preschool for the younger two!

• Our alphabet strip is up on the wall. So we found letter A and sang the ABC song. We use the alphabet strip here. I love it!
• We traced Big A and little a in the air with our fingers.

Then on to the ANTS!

• I gave the kids a magnifying glass and we went in the backyard to search for ants. They loved it. We found all sorts of bugs … spiders, flies, beetles and finally some ants! They loved how fast and crazy they ran around. We saw tiny ants and some big, juicy ones.

 

• Then we glued our alphabet page. My 3-year-old wanted to write an A and spell “ANT” all by himself. I think he did pretty well! “TMA” is ANT backwards Then we glued on lots of plastic ants to our A page. I got my ants here and they’ve lasted a couple of years!

 

• Ant Restaurant … this ended up being the highlight of the day!
  1. Use a paper plate and write “ANT restaurant” in the center.
  2. Help your preschooler think of different foods the ants might like to try. We used a grape, cheese, cream cheese, banana slice, a sixlet , honey, peanut butter and a crouton.
  3. Make a guess! Which food will the ants like best? I guessed the banana. My 3-year-old guessed the chocolate Sixlet (his favorite!)
  4. Place the plate outside, in the shade, where you have seen ants before.
  5. Wait.
  6. We came back a few hours later and sure enough, there were ants in our restaurant! The kids were so excited!! They sat and watched those ants for a long time. Obviously they liked the honey best.

• Read Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg
  1. We read this before naptime.
  2. It is about two ants who decide to stay behind in the sugar bowl instead of following the rest of the ants back with their tasty crystals. Their adventure begins when a large scoop (a spoon) shovels them into a hot cup of coffee and they are almost poured into a large, dark cave (a mouth). They are tossed into the toaster, onto the kitchen faucet (a giant waterfall), down the garbage disposal and thrown out of an electrical socket. It’s a fun read seeing everything from the ant’s perspective.