ANT MINI-INVESTIGATION
An investigation into the amazing world of ants, how they live, communicate and work.
Providing children with opportunities to make observational drawings helps children focus and really observe details. Drawing also gives them opportunities to discuss what they see which develops verbal and social skills.
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Grace, Julian and Justin discovered several ant holes. Providing simple tools like a magnifying glass helped increase the children's discovery and interest. Grace said, “Ants are coming out the ant hole.” Julian said, “Big hole under the ground.”
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Offering a variety of ways to count and sequence, for example with ant numbering cards, can enhance the child’s knowledge of math and order of numbers. The children also wrote the numbers after they sequenced the cards which extended on the activity and enhanced their writing skills and number recognition.
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Stamping ants was the original activity, but after Tim recalled a memory of seeing an ant, he was given the opportunity to draw what his memory was about. This is a perfect example of how some activities don’t go as planned and how important it is to follow the interest of the child.
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More experiments from the ant investigation:
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