THE LITTLE HARDWORKING ANT

For today's homeschool lesson, we learned about ants. Some of the things we learned about ants are:

• Ants live in underground cities called colonies.
• Body parts include head, thorax and abdomen.
• They have six, legs, two eyes, a mouth, and two feelers called antennae.
• Ants work hard to do the job their meant to do. The biggest ant is called the queen. She lays eggs. Some ants work to build underground tunnels and keep the colony clean. Some gather foods. Some protect the queen and baby ants.
• Aphids are "cows" of the colony. They suck honeydew juices from plants and store them in their abdomen for the other ants to feed on. Honeypot ants eat so much that they can't walk anymore and so all they do is hang on the ceiling and other ants can feed on from their big bellies.
• Ants grow fungus in their "garden" for food. They chew on leaves, spit them out, and fungus then would grow from there.
• Ants are helpers. The tunnels they make underground help keep the soil soft. Ants are also snack for some animals such as frogs and birds.
• God wants us to learn from ants. Proverbs 6:6 says, "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:" 

For activities, we first did a little counting with the use of Numbers and Skills with Button Bear workbook. While coloring, my son said, "Mom, I'm gonna be like an ant. I'm gonna work hard." It made me so happy to hear him say that.

We then reviewed the parts of an apple from our previous lesson. After that, we crafted a paper ant using black cardstock, wiggly eyes, and markers. I cut out three circles, and my son glued them together on a white cardstock. We then glued wiggly eyes to it. He drew the legs and antennae, and added a smile on its cute face for a happy touch to this rather big ant :) He then wrote the word "ant" underneath it.

We then moved on to practice writing -- one of my son's least favorite things to do. He needs constant motivation when it comes to this part but the pushy mom in me tries her hardest not to push him so much to the point of burnout. The struggle is real for both of us. Whenever I feel like nudging him a little further, I have to remind myself that he is only 3, and he can write and read already.

So that concludes our lesson for today. I prepared him some "ant snacks" using Mini Oreos and a couple of marshmallows, but I didn't think they were pretty enough, so I didn't bother taking pictures of them.

Oh, and since the weather is much nicer and cooler now, Vonn Kaleb and I spent a couple of hours outside to play ball before we started our homeschool lesson. We saw some bugs and we also gathered branches, twigs, leaves and acorns while outside -- these are a few of my little boy's favorite things!