The Ants Went Marching Today!

Today was the day to get familiar with ants.  In the morning we watched Sid the Science Kid and Magic School Bus Gets Ants in it's Pants.  Natalie and I played the Catch the Bug in the jar game on www.picklebum.com.  Then she got cranky and Brookie didn't arrive until 12:00.  I popped them both on my bed for a movie and rest time and got our gear ready on the table.

When they got up we had a great afternoon doing lots of fun activities. Newly four year old Natalie and three and a half year old Brooke did an ants on the log counting activity, putting the correct number of pony beads on brown pipe cleaner logs.  We did a counting ants activity with number recognition, reviewed ant body parts (3 body parts, 6 legs, 2 antenna and no teeth!).  Colored a picture and learned to spell ant.  They practiced writing their names, did ant mazes, found letter Aa in a grid of letters then learned the Ants Go Marching Home complete with stomping and patting and read The Ants Go Marching, I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track by Joshua Prince, a fact book by Karen Ang and a silly book about bugs and THEN went outside and put ants in our bug catchers to watch.   That earned them 2 freezy pops each and they happily played on the deck for the rest of the time before their parents came and I got dinner on for my guys before they left for baseball practice.

Such a fun day and I feel like they learned so much.  I put up a poster in their playroom with the butterfly cycle and at day's end that caught there attention so after our side trip to the Bouwens farm tomorrow, where I am positive we will see some bugs, we will be doing butterflies on Friday.  Brooke seems brave now, looking at all the bugs and she is much less fearful.  That in itself is a very big plus!