Ants and Homeschool

Nothing makes my skin crawl faster than crawling ants.

Kaiser rolls are tasty.
Imagine a hot ham and cheese sandwich on a kaiser roll. I even like those little black poppy seeds as long as they do not get trapped between my teeth.

Yum.

When I was in high school, I worked at a wonderful shop. It was like working with family.
Only this family never got under your skin.

Until they asked me to do the unthinkable.

Photo by Skitter 

We had a five-gallon bucket of poppy seeds. That’s a lot in case you are wondering. 

The owner pulled me aside and explained he had a special job for me.

Black ants had just discovered the bucket of poppy seeds and he needed me to pick them out so we could salvage the precious black specs.

It still gives me the shudders and shakes.

There were only a few ants in the poppy seeds, maybe 23 ants total.

But it made it seems like the whole bucket was crawling with ants.

Over 25 years later I still have nightmares.

Forget horror flicks, ants make me shudder.

Why Willingly Bring Ants into Your Home?

One word: boys.

We finally broke through my paranoia and bought one of our kids an ant farm. Not only is this an excellent gift for the animal lover of our family, but it has turned into an amazing “cross-grade” science lesson.

I find it crazy that I have been the mom of boys for over 22 years and this is the first ant farm, don’t you? But then again, remember the poppy seeds?

The boys were beside themselves when the ants finally arrived.

I had to make a fun learning packet to go with the Ant Farm.