Lesson Plans The Ants

After the groups have collected data, have them choose two or three of the ant species they studied.

My View as an Ant | Lesson Plan | www.newyorkethnicfood.com | Lesson plan | www.newyorkethnicfood.com

Each group should illustrate and describe the species it selected and the shelters that each species builds. You can have one student in each group be the writer, one the illustrator, and one the page designer. Collate the pages into a class book. You can ask any students who finish quickly to create an index and a table of contents for the book. When the book is complete, allow students time to share it with other classes throughout the school. Those other class members might write book reviews, thank you letters, or responses to your students' presentation.

Back to Top Adaptations Instead of having your students conduct research about ants, you can simply take them outside to your recreation area, where they can observe ants in action. Back in the classroom, they can make drawings of what they have seen. They may also dictate sentences about their observations to older students, then add their sentences to their drawings. Instead of creating a book, older students might use the information they gather to make a presentation to the class. Each group of students can be assigned one of the continents, then make a more comprehensive presentation on the ant shelters that exist in their assigned territory.

If possible, they might even make a multimedia presentation using PowerPoint or HyperStudio. Back to Top Discussion Questions 1. Explain how the environment changes the way that ants and humans build their shelters.

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All animals—even humans—have to deal with changes in the environment. What if there was no rain or the electricity was going to be off for a long period of time? What would people do? What would happen to the world's wildlife? Would humans or other animals be worse off? Discuss how ant jobs are similar to human jobs. Are some ant jobs more important than others are? Are some human jobs more important? What would happen if different ants stopped doing their jobs? What about different humans? Ants on television and in the movies are almost always portrayed as hard workers.

Think about the ants you have seen in stories, fables, movies, and television shows. How are these ant characters different from real ants? How are they the same? Ants may seem bad for the environment, but they can also be good for it! Ants are pests at times, but they also keep the environment free of other bugs by eating them. Should humans destroy ant communities near housing developments. What would occur if all of the ants were destroyed? What would occur if the ants are not destroyed?

Compare the body parts of ants to those of another insect, like the bee or the butterfly.

Which parts are the same? Which parts are different? Use a Venn diagram to organize your comparison. Back to Top Evaluation You can evaluate your students on their group's page completion using the following three-point rubric: Second- and third-grade students, for instance, might only require four facts, but fifth graders might require eight. Back to Top Extensions Nest Blueprints Have students paint or draw a side view of an underground ant nest.

Using fingerprints of washable paint, have students add ants to the tunnels: Use big thumbprints for that queen ant! Make sure their drawings depict ants in different stages of development, with ants doing different jobs. Cross-Species Photo Album Have students bring in photographs of themselves as babies and as they currently look. Then have them draw themselves as they think they will look when they are adults.

Beside each picture, direct students to draw ants in their three stages of development: Lead a discussion about whether ants and humans develop in the same ways. Can You Do Ant Haiku? The Japanese haiku, an unrhymed poem, is made up of three lines and 17 syllables.

The first and third lines have five syllables and the second line has seven. Haiku are known for making references to the seasons. Challenge students to write haiku about ants and their behaviors. Here is a simple example: Ants crawl through tunnels. They eat picnics in summer And hide in winter.

Create-An-Ant The best way to study anatomy is often to build a model. Ask your students to choose a variety of ant they particularly like and create a three-dimensional version of it. Their model can be of any size and can use any materials they choose. Clay, toothpicks, marshmallows, gumdrops, and fabric work really well.

You can also ask them to label the ant's various body parts. When the students are done, you can assemble their work into an ant museum for the whole school to appreciate! Take a Closer Look Have students take small magnifying glasses outside and observe ants doing their jobs. Make sure they don't harm the ants! Do army ants find food by smell or by sight?

One of the most common species of ants is called the "odorous house ant. Ants come in many colors. Do they come in yellow and purple and green? How many ant species are there in the world? How many eggs does a female odorous house ant lay each day? How can you tell the difference between a native fire ant and an imported fire ant? How does the size of an anthill relate to conditions inside the nest?

How do worker ants lead other workers away from danger or to a source of food? Do leaf-cutter ants eat leaves? Name three things that an ant's antennae enable it to do. A special dog dish has been invented so ants won't get into a dog's food. How does this dish prevent ant infestation?

Why are "large yellow ants" sometimes called citronella ants? How do ants clean their antennae? Army ants often travel in moving columns. What's the longest column of army ants ever seen? Through which port city did harmful fire ants from Mexico first enter the United States? Ants have two sets of jaws. What do they use their second set of jaws -- called maxillae -- for? Put the list of leafcutter ants below in order from smallest to largest. How long have ants lived on Earth?

Which worker ant lives the longest life -- the carpenter ant, the fire ant, or the odorous house ant? When some ant species bite, they are able to make their bite seem doubly painful. How do they do that? Does the carpenter ant eat wood like a termite does? Things can be very difficult for a queen leafcutter ant that is starting a new colony. What might she use as a source of food in the first days of a new colony? Do ants make sounds? If so, what kind of sounds do they make?

The "ants" in this recipe are really raisins! The Ants and the Grasshopper An Aesop fable that teaches the lesson "It is thrifty to prepare today for the wants of tomorrow. Ants use their jaws to fight enemies; to grasp, carry, bite, or cut up food; to carry their young; to dig up soil; or to cut through wood to build a nest.

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Army ants eat mostly insects, but any slow-moving creature can become a victim, eaten alive and left a skeleton in a few hours. Most army ants are blind. They are guided by blind soldier ants that lay down scent trails. The odorous house ant got its name from the disagreeable smell similar to the smell of rotten coconuts given off when a group of them are crushed.

Yes, ants come in yellow and purple and green. According to one estimate there are a million ants for each person! A female odorous house ant lays one egg each day. The head of the native fire ant is wider than its abdomen; the head of the imported fire ant isn't wider than its abdomen. The more area the mound of anthill dirt above the ground covers the more solar heat the anthill absorbs and the warmer the nest is. They lay down a chemical trail that the other ants follow. No; leaf-cutter ants chew the leaves into a pulp-like material which will sprout a fungus.

The ants eat the fungus. An ant's antennae enable it to find and taste food; detect air currents; feel surface textures; hear; and smell.

The special dog bowl has a rim area that circles it. The rim is filled with water so ants can't get to the dog's food! Large yellow ants also called citronella ants have a lemony smell when they are crushed. Ants use comb-like structures on their legs to clean their antennae. The longest column of army ants ever seen was a half-mile. The maxillae chew food into small pieces. Ants swallow the liquid that comes from those pieces and spit out what remains of the food. From smallest to largest, the leaf-cutter ants are the worker ant, the soldier ant, then the queen ant.

The oldest known ant in the world, found preserved in amber, lived about million years ago. Carpenter ants win the life expectancy race! Carpenter worker ants live up to seven years; fire worker ants live up to days; and odorous house worker ants live for several years.

Some ants squirt formic acid from the end of their abdomen into the wound. Carpenter ants don't actually eat the wood they attack. Instead, they rip and tear the wood to create their nests. A queen leaf-cutter ant lays special non-fertilized eggs just for eating. Yes, ants make sounds like those made by crickets and katydids, only not as loud. An ant also makes a sound by rubbing its body against another ant's body.

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Run out of Every-Day Edit activities for the month of November? Check out our Xtra activities for any time of year. Different Types and Sources of Energy Subject: To understand that there are different types and sources of energy Next Gen Science Standard: Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents. What do you think energy is? Allow the students to answer. Today, we are going to be talking about energy.

Energy is power that comes from a source and is used to provide light, heat or to work machines. There are different kinds of energy and energy comes from different sources. One type of energy is kinetic ki-ne-tic energy and one type of energy is potential energy. Kinetic energy is energy that is in motion. A ball bouncing is using kinetic energy. Potential energy is stored energy. A ball that is sitting at the top of a hill has potential energy. When you are sitting at your desk with your hands on your desk, your hands have potential energy.

When you raise your hand or move your hand to write, your hand has kinetic energy. Now, we are going to talk about the sources of energy. That means where energy comes from. Energy comes from many different places. Coal, natural gas and oil are all burned and then turned into energy.