A Better Way to Homeschool https://abetterwaytohomeschool.com What if we focus on character Wed, 29 May 2019 18:56:40 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.5 https://abetterwaytohomeschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/cropped-ABW-Apple_Heart-Image-32x32.png A Better Way to Homeschool https://abetterwaytohomeschool.com 32 32 Ants and Homeschool https://abetterwaytohomeschool.com/ants-and-homeschoo.html https://abetterwaytohomeschool.com/ants-and-homeschoo.html#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2016 21:30:00 +0000 https://abetterwaytohomeschool.com/?p=99

Read More »

]]>

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.

Note: ants are not included in the ant farm. We ordered our ants here. The crazy cold weather caused them to be behind in shipping, but the ants arrived safe and sound!
It has been fascinating to watch these industrious little creature go to town!
If you know me, you’ll know that I couldn’t help myself.

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

Only, I completely overcame my “heebie-jeebies” while writing and made no mention of crawling buckets of poppy seeds. You’re welcome.
I have 5th-7th graders but I made this packet to be targeted at strong 3rd Grade readers.
My youngest is still working on becoming a strong reader, so I wrote the text at his level.
Are you studying Ants or Insects this year?

You may like this packet as well:). Just don’t have them search for ants in a bucket of poppy seeds.

Ready to “crawl inside” the science?

Here is what you will need:

]]> https://abetterwaytohomeschool.com/ants-and-homeschoo.html/feed 1