11 replies to this topic

[Kalidas]

So tomorrow is the big day,gonna bring the ants into a classroom at my center to help the teachers end their week of insects on a pretty high note

Just printed out images of ant life cycles,ant anotomy,trophillaxis, and pupae/cocoons.

And the kids will be viewing the ants under a magnifying glass. I will also ask the teacher to dim the lights and hopefully close the blinds, the less stress the girls have to deal with the better.

Should be fun,will keep you all posted on what happens

[ponerinecat]

yayayayayayayayayayayayayay

I wanna do that

[ANTdrew]

I hope it goes great, my friend.
My ghetto a$$ 8th graders couldn’t handle this.

[Kalidas]

I hope it goes great, my friend.
My ghetto a$$ 8th graders couldn’t handle this.

Oh don't get me wrong I am little worried. This class has some pretty difficult kids. Luckily in preschool there's multiple teachers to help keep an eye, I will have my hands firmly on the nest the whole time, and I will probably only have one kid near them at a time. But yeah that's got me nervous with some of the kids.

[Reacker]

I did this once a few years ago for roughly preschool age kids at a summer science/bug camp thing. The kids went completely crazy for the live colonies and various ant facts. I think you're going to have a really good time.

 

Expect a lot of excited kids crowding around whatever it is you're showing them. Hopefully you're bringing at least a few small colonies/queens in tubes or whatever that you they can handle directly; as humans and especially for small children, touching things is the best way of experiencing them. I won't worry too much about stressing your ants out with light. You're bringing them to be visible to the kids, and just moving them is going to bother the ants as much as possible, so you might as well just use normal lighting conditions so everyone can get a good look.

[Kalidas]

I did this once a few years ago for roughly preschool age kids at a summer science/bug camp thing. The kids went completely crazy for the live colonies and various ant facts. I think you're going to have a really good time.
 
Expect a lot of excited kids crowding around whatever it is you're showing them. Hopefully you're bringing at least a few small colonies/queens in tubes or whatever that you they can handle directly; as humans and especially for small children, touching things is the best way of experiencing them. I won't worry too much about stressing your ants out with light. You're bringing them to be visible to the kids, and just moving them is going to bother the ants as much as possible, so you might as well just use normal lighting conditions so everyone can get a good look.

Oh trust me, I know. I am a child development major,a preschool teacher myself, and a parent of three preschool age boys.

Okay thanks for that advice.

Sadly I have the one colony in the starter formicarium from Drew. And even if I had more I wouldn't be able to let the kids touch. When I had asked the head director of our region(it's a head start program) she specifically wanted to make sure that the ants would not escape and the kids wouldn't touch them. I mean yeah I wish they could touch them it WOULD be great for learning but simply don't have enough and the program wouldn't even allow it.

[Kalidas]

So just had the activity and it went better then expected. The kids were super curious about the ants. It was funny explaining trophillaxis to them all the kids had this gross look on their face like "eewwwww".

Also I loved seeing all the girls faces light up learning all the ants were girls, you could see just how excited they were to hear that.

They were very careful watching the ants and were very curious about them. One boy didn't want to leave he was just sitting there staring at them with his eyes while the other kids took turns using the magnifying glass, I think this boy will be a future antkeeper one day.

Edited by Kalidas, October 24 2019 - 8:35 AM.

[ANTdrew]

That's really cool, man! Yeah, that one boy will definitely be an ant keeper. Heck, maybe some of those girls will grow up not despising all ants and insects in general?

[Mettcollsuss]

I hope I'm able to do this one day. It sounds really fun.

[Kalidas]

That's really cool, man! Yeah, that one boy will definitely be an ant keeper. Heck, maybe some of those girls will grow up not despising all ants and insects in general?

I hope so

[dspdrew]

So just had the activity and it went better then expected. The kids were super curious about the ants. It was funny explaining trophillaxis to them all the kids had this gross look on their face like "eewwwww".

Also I loved seeing all the girls faces light up learning all the ants were girls, you could see just how excited they were to hear that.

They were very careful watching the ants and were very curious about them. One boy didn't want to leave he was just sitting there staring at them with his eyes while the other kids took turns using the magnifying glass, I think this boy will be a future antkeeper one day.

 

Glad that worked out well.

[Kalidas]

So just had the activity and it went better then expected. The kids were super curious about the ants. It was funny explaining trophillaxis to them all the kids had this gross look on their face like "eewwwww".
Also I loved seeing all the girls faces light up learning all the ants were girls, you could see just how excited they were to hear that.
They were very careful watching the ants and were very curious about them. One boy didn't want to leave he was just sitting there staring at them with his eyes while the other kids took turns using the magnifying glass, I think this boy will be a future antkeeper one day.

 
Glad that worked out well.

Yeah me too!

Only concern I have is the queen left the little nesting box I the formicarium you made and was just kind of sitting in one of the corners and one of the workers grabbed tge eggs and brought them out also.

During my lunch I I peeked a little to make sure they were okay and she was still there and the worker was still standing over the eggs out of the nest area. I hope this isn't a huge concern