Activity: Ant Farm
Would you like to keep pet ants? If you don't what to buy an ant farm kit from a science store you can follow the steps below and build it yourself.
Goal:
Goal:
How to Build an Ant Farm
1. Place a small cardboard tube into a jar. Fill with dirt.
2. Find an ant colony. You can go to the park or your garden and try and find them. Using a plastic spoon, gently dig enough ants and dirt to fill up the jar 2-3 inches from the top. Do not disturb the nest and avoid the entrance way, to avoid collapsing it. (You can put sugar water in a jar, leave it near the edge of a nest and the ants will come to you!)
3. Capture a queen ant. Queens have a much larger thorax and abdomen and usually colored black. They will be located around a lot of eggs. Catching a queen can be difficult; try checking under logs, stones and in shallower anthills. Be careful - ants will defend their queen and try to bite you!
4. Get food for your ants. Most ants eat/drink tiny bits of fruit and vegetables, dead cockroaches, sugar water, honey, small bread crumbs, bread dipped in sugar water, crackers/bread crumbs with a drop of honey or waffle syrup.
5. Take care of the ants. Sure, ants can go a little while without food. But they will die quickly without water (anywhere from overnight to a couple of days). To water the ant farm, drop a cotton ball soaked in water into the jar. Your ant farm should be watered every day and kept in the shade.
6. Be careful. Don't move the jar too much. The dirt could settle and collapse the tunnels created by the ants.
In your Main Lesson Book, journal about your ant farm. How do they build their home? How much do they carry? If you were an ant, what would you be able to carry? A cow? A car? After a few days, draw a picture of your ant farm in your Main Lesson Book. How many tunnels have your ants created? Where do the different tunnels lead?