by kara louise munn · monster ant have students work in groups to make monster ants. encourage...

AntsB

lake’s Topic Ban

k Each integrated unit contains:■ 6 pages of teaching notes in an integrated teaching sequence■ 10 practical blackline masters■ National Profile outcomes■ A useful resource list

by Kara Louise Munn

IU39 ■ AntsMiddle Primary

1

MIDDLE PRIMARY

Learning Area Focus ScienceTopic Ants inhabit all but the coldest places in the country, so they are an ideal creature for students tostudy. They are small, plentiful, and require little space and minimal care. Ants can be kept in theclassroom or at home. They work during the day, so their behaviour can be watched closely by students.The ants’ communal system of living is fascinating and is sure to inspire even the most squeamish ofstudents. Don’t plan to do this unit in winter.

National Profile OutcomesStudents will:■ Science 3.14 Organise and use equipment to gather

and present information.■ Science 3.17 Compare ways of solving problems

and finding explanations.■ Technology 3.4 Assess how well ideas, products

and processes used meet design requirements.■ English 3.1 Interact for specific purposes with

people in the classroom and school community usinga small range of text types.

■ English 3.8b Use several strategies for identifyingresources and finding information in texts.

■ English 3.10 Recognise that certain text types andfeatures are associated with particular purposes andaudiences.

■ Maths 3.4 Use a variety of ways when prompted tocheck working and choice of method.

■ Maths 3.18 Select suitable and uniform things touse as units when measuring and a common unit tocompare two things.

■ SOSE 3.1 Describe how groups value different formsof work.

■ The Arts 3.3, 3.8, 3.13, 3.18 Plan and presentarts works for a particular audience or purpose.

Antsby Kara Louise Munn

ResourcesFactual booksRon and Nancy Goor, Insect Metamorphosis, AladdinBooksJinny Johnson, Creepy Crawlies—a closer look at theworld’s tiny creatures, RiverswiftLaurence Mound, Collins Eyewitness Guides: Insect,William CollinsChristopher O’Toole, Discovering Ants, WaylandPublishersJane Parker, Focus on Insects, Gloucester PressJim Pipe, The Giant Book of Bugs and Creepy Crawlies,Aladdin BooksTrevor Terry and Margaret Linton, Ants, Puffin BooksTrevor Terry and Margaret Linton, The Life Cycle of anAnt, WaylandRon Thomas and Jan Stutchbury, Ants, MacmillanCompany of Australia

Picture booksLorna and Graham Philpot, Amazing Anthony Ant, OrionChildren’s Books

Web siteswww.myrmecology.org/

For all your teaching needs visit www.blake.com.au

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Ants Teaching NotesWhat are ants?

Initial observationsCollect some ants and place them in see-throughcontainers. Depending on the time of year and theabundance of ants near your classroom, you maylike to have students collect the ants. Try to alloweach table or group to have their own set of ants toview. Provide students with magnifying glasses andsmall hand lenses and allow them to look at theants and make observations. Have students make alist of these observations. Release the ants whereveryou found them. Alternatively, keep the ants and setup the ant farm mentioned in later lessons. Provide students with a range of books about antsand about insects in general. Have students browsethrough the texts and mark any pages that theyconsider to be of interest. You can provide studentswith sticky notes or other book marks. Have ageneral sharing session and ask students to showand to discuss some of the pages they have marked.

ClassificationRefer to the books about insects. Explain to studentsthat scientists have devised a system to classify allliving things, which is understood all around theworld. The names used are in Latin and can berecognised by scientists everywhere. All the animalsof the world belong to the large group called theanimal kingdom. The animals are then split up intogroups called phyla. Each phylum has a name.Insects belong to the phylum Arthropoda. Thisincludes all the segmented invertebrates (animalsthat have no backbone) with jointed legs. Next,each phylum is separated into groups called classes.Ants belong to the class called Insecta. Each class isthen broken up into orders. The Insecta class isbroken up into 31 different orders. Each order isbroken into families, which are broken into generaand then, finally, each genus is divided into thedifferent species.

For example, the bull ant belongs to the orderHymenoptera, the family Formicidae, the genusMyrmecia and the species gulosa. The scientificname of an animal is always made up of its genusand species names, so the bull ant’s scientific nameis Myrmecia gulosa. Its common name, bull ant, isthe name people usually use when they are talkingabout it. See if students can find out the scientificnames of some of the other types of ant.

Insects in generalHave students read some information texts aboutinsects. Provide them with BLM 1 and ask them tofind answers to the questions. You will need toprovide a variety of texts. The texts in the Resourceslist cover all of the questions on the BLM. However,any good quality children’s book on insects shoulddeal with the same material. Encourage students toshare their findings, and to work in groups. Somequestions have a number of correct answers.

Body partsStudents will have learnt that all insects have threebody parts: a head, a thorax and an abdomen. Antsare no exception. On their heads, they have twoantennae (or feelers) and two strong jaws.Extending from the thorax are three pairs of legs,and, in the case of male ants and queen ants, thewings. The waist section is between the thorax andthe abdomen and has one or two nodes, or smallbumps.Provide students with a variety of old screws, nutsand bolts, and some paint. Have students use thescrews and bolts to print the shape of an ant ontocard or paper. Encourage students to keep checkingwith diagrams of ants so that they are sure theyinclude each section of the body. For the legs, usethin black pen. Alternatively, put paint on the end ofa nail and drag it outwards from the thorax.

Labelling an antProvide students with BLM 2 and someinformation books containing labelled diagrams ofants. Studentsshould use thewords on the BLMto label the ant.


3

Have students write information on the appropriatepages. They can write in full sentences, or writepage references and book titles. Display students’notes. Have members of the class volunteer to workon each section for completion in the final report.Discuss the order in which the sentences should go,and encourage students to use correct grammar.

Ants, ants, antsThere are many types of ants. Have students workin small groups or pairs to research a specific type.Make sure one group researches the bulldog ant,which lives only in Australia. Students may like touse the internet and the library to find extrainformation. Remind students to use the index andcontents pages of the reference books. Allowstudents to use BLM 3 as a scaffold for their report.Enlarge the BLM to A3 size if possible. Otherwisemake sure students have space to write extrainformation.

An ant or a ant?Discuss with students the use of ‘an’ before a wordstarting with a vowel. Have students go on a printwalk around the classroom, hunting for words thatwould be prefaced by ‘an’ rather than ‘a’. Make a listof these.

Ant anticsHave students make a list of all the words (orphrases) they can think of that contain the word‘ant’. Examples could include antic, antelope,pants, mantlepiece, antihistamine, lantern,frantic, ants in your pants. Now ask students toillustrate each of these words by using an ant orants as the focus. Examples could be a picture of anantelope with the head of an ant, or a picture of anant with its body lit up as a lantern, or amantlepiece adorned with patterns of ants.Encourage students to use their imaginations.

Monster antHave students work in groups to make monsterants. Encourage students to decide on a scale, andto stick to this when they are creating their ant. Givestudents old boxes, toilet rolls, and other recyclablecontainers. They will also need sticky-tape, glue andscissors. Have each group make the shape of an ant.Next, mix up some papier-mâché paste and havestudents cover their ant shape with it. Tear somesmall pieces of newspaper and attach them to thepaste. Add another coat of paste and morenewspaper, and continue doing this until the ant iscovered with 5 or 6 coats of paper. Allow the modelant to dry. It may take a number of days, dependingon the weather. Continue pasting layers of paperonto the shape until it is tough and can hold its ownweight. Finally, have students paint their ant.

Symmetrical antsEach student will need one piece of black Brennixpaper. Have students fold it in half with the whiteside facing out. Now, along the folded edge havestudents draw one side of an ant shape. Forexample, the head will be a semi-circle, there will bejust one antennae and only three legs. Next, withthe paper still folded in two have students cut outthe shape. When they have finished, open up thepaper and a full, symmetrical ant shape will appear.Paste this onto a contrasting background anddisplay.

Jointly constructed reportExplain to students that, as a class, they are going towrite a report on ants. Allow students theopportunity to read the books about ants andinsects. Ask students to make some simple notesand to mark (for example with sticky notes) anypages they find that are of interest. Now place largesheets of chart paper and felt-tip pens around theroom. Each sheet of paper should have one of thefollowing headings: ■ general information about ants■ what ants look like■ what types of ants there are■ where ants live■ what ants eat■ how ants reproduce■ who are ants’ enemies?■ other interesting information■ words to include in a glossary■ ideas for diagrams.


4

Where and how do ants live?

Life undergroundLook in some of the books at the diagrams ofunderground ant nests. Have students worktogether to recreate one on a display wall in yourclassroom. Use brown crepe paper or wrappingpaper to represent the soil. Attach it to a wall sothat it almost covers the whole area. Leave a littlespace at the top to represent the area above soillevel. Paint the chambers and the tunnels onto thecrepe paper. Also paint some plants or stones in thearea above the soil level. Ask students to draw lotsand lots of tiny ants with thin black pens. Talk withstudents about who will draw the queen ant andwhat the purpose of each chamber will be. Somechambers will house the cocoons, and one willhouse the queen and her eggs. Some ants should beshown carrying out particular tasks, for examplenursery workers looking after the larvae, andworkers bringing in food. Label each section of theant nest.

Jobs for the antsEach ant in a nest has a job to do. Ask students topretend that a new queen ant has given them thetask of writing job descriptions for each of thepositions that will need to be filled in her nest.

DiscussionHave students imagine that they are ants. Initiate adiscussion with students about the type of ant theywould want to be, and the job they would want todo. Encourage students to give reasons for andagainst being each type of ant.

Crossword solution - BLM 4

CrosswordHave students read over the glossaries they createdwhen they were writing reports in earlier lessons.Provide dictionaries and information texts. Givestudents BLM 4 and help them to complete thecrossword. Early finishers might like to add someextra words into the crossword. The answers areshown at the bottom of the previous column.

How heavy is that?Ants can carry items that weigh 50 times more thantheir own bodies! Have students weigh themselveson some bathroom scales. Be sensitive if weight isan issue for some students. Now have studentsmultiply their weight by 50. Help students to workout what they could carry if they had the strengthof an ant. Use multiples of objects like 5 kg bags ofpotatoes, bricks, plastic bottles of paint, or litres ofmilk. Record the results.

What’s that smell?Ants use their sense of smell to guide them. Set upa smell test where students are blindfolded andneed to guess smells that are presented to them.Have students work in small groups. Each studentin the group should be blindfolded except thepresenter. Airline blindfolds are useful. Alternativelyyou can use hankies or scarfs tied around students’heads. Encourage students to waft the smellstoward their noses with their hands rather thantaking huge sniffs. Include smells that are pleasantas well as ones that are not. Examples could bebath oils, Vicks chest rub, fish food, nutmeg, sesameoil, basil or other fresh herbs, banana, perfume,lavender, compost, vinegar, lemon, dog food.

Break the trailShow students BLM 5, and ask them tohypothesise what may happen in the givencircumstances. Next, find a number of ant trails.These could be outside or they could be set upinside. As well as a copy of BLM 5, students willneed a pencil and a hand lens or magnifying glass.Students should choose a section of the trail toobserve. Have themfollow thedirections on theBLM and recordwhat happens.

fl o

c h a m b e ro r u m

t u n n e l v l i n s e c t ao a l c

a n t e n n a e a qy r u

m a r r i a g eu em n


5

Team work gamesAnts work very much as a team. Talk with studentsabout how their classroom needs to work like ateam. Play some games that require students towork together.■ Have students sit in groups in small circles. Place

an empty tin in the centre of each circle. Ensureno sharp edges have been left when the lid hasbeen removed. Students must pass the tinaround the circle without using their hands.They will need to use their feet. Every secondstudent will need to hold the tin with both feetas the next student uses one foot to pass the tinon. Allow students plenty of time to work thisout for themselves.

■ Have students sit in a circle and place small beanbags (or any small, flat objects) in the middle.One student is blindfolded and is required totravel from one given point in the circle toanother without stepping on any of the‘explodable’ objects. Students sitting in the circlemust give directions such as ‘Take three smallsteps to your right.’

■ Ask all of the students to stand in a circle andface clockwise. They will need to be standingquite close to each other. Gradually all of thestudents must sit on the lap of the person behind them.

Us and themAsk students to draw a large building. Dependingon where your school is situated, you may need todiscuss this in some detail. Have students mark thesimilarities they can find with an ants’ nest.Examples could include a creche for young children,a kitchen area, a storage area, a main entrance.Also encouragestudents torecognise thesimilarities betweenthe duties thatdifferent membersperform.

Ants in the kitchenAsk students if they have ever had a problem withants in their kitchens at home. Most will probablyremember a time when the honey or sugar wasinfested with ants or the cordial bottle had antsfloating inside. Set up an experiment to determinewhich foods ants like best. Have each student, orgroup of students, choose six foods that they thinkwill be attractive to ants. Ask students to placesmall drops or pieces of the foods they have chosenonto small pieces of plastic. Put the food in the pathof some ants, or place it in an ant farm that hasbeen set up in the classroom. Leave overnight. Havestudents observe and record the results.

Hundreds and thousandsProvide students with BLM 6. Have students lookat the ants in each of the chambers and estimatehow many there are. Have students record theirguess in the spaces provided. Next, encouragestudents to come up with ways of gaining moreaccurate answers. Allow students to use their ownmethods. Show students how to trace around asmall shape (a square about 2 cm across wouldwork), count accurately the number of ants in thisarea and then multiply this by the total number ofshapes that fit in the area. Talk about when andwhere this method would work.

Ant battleshipsThis game is based on the rules of Battleships.Remind students how to play and also how to readgrid references. Students are to play in pairs. Theymust use the upper grid on BLM 7 to draw an ants’nest. It should include six chambers, a queen ant,and interlinking tunnels. Each chamber should be abox shape. Of the six chambers, 1 must be 5 boxeslong, 2 must be 4 boxes long, 1 must be 3 boxeslong and 2 must be 2 boxes long. The queen antshould take up one whole box. The ants’ nest mustnot be seen by the student’s partner. The aim of thegame is to find all of the chambers and the queenant in the opposition’s ant nest. Ask students to takeit in turns to say a grid reference. These should bemarked on the lower grid on BLM 7. If thereference corresponds to a chamber in the ants’nest, the student has been successful at locating itand it is marked off in some way. The playerscontinue until all the chambers and the two queenshave been found.


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What is the life cycle of an ant?

The life cycle of an antProvide students with BLM 8 and have them cutout and order each part of the life cycle. The correctorder is as follows:

■ In the summer, queen ants and males fly into thesky to mate.

■ The male ants die.

■ The queen ant looks for a place to build her nest.

■ The queen ant breaks off her wings.

■ The queen ant starts to make her tunnelunderground.

■ The queen ant lays her first eggs.

■ The eggs hatch into larvae.

■ The larvae grow and become too big for theirskins. They moult.

■ Each larva makes a cocoon around itself.

■ Each larva becomes a pupa.

■ The pupae become young worker ants.

■ Each of the young worker ants has a job to do tomaintain the nest.

■ The next summer, the queen lays special eggsthat will hatch into male ants and queen ants.

■ The male ants and the queen ants fly into thesky to mate.

Ask students to draw this life cycle.

How can we keep ants in theclassroom?

Setting up an ant farmThere are a few ways that this can be done. One isto put a jar of damp soil in a tray filled with water.On top of the jar place a piece of wood which has ahole made in the centre. The water is to stop theants escaping. The hole in the wood is to allow theants to come into view as they eat the food whichhas been left for them on the top of the wood. Placea stone on the soil. Another way to keep ants is to place them in atransparent box that has had holes made in its lid.The ants need a smaller box placed inside so theycan use it as a chamber. Since ants don’t like lightshining directly into their nest cover this smallerbox with red cellophane so that you can see in butthe ants can’t see out. Students can use BLM 9 to record the changes thatoccur in their ant farm.

Writing a procedureProvide students with BLM 10. Explain to studentsthat they will be writing a procedure. Ask them toimagine that another student is going to use theprocedure they write to set up an ant farm. Theprocedure should give a step-by-step description ofhow to set up the ant farm. The steps should besequential, clear and precise. The students can usethe headings on the BLM to guide them.


This page may be reproduced by the original purchaser for non-commercial classroom use.

BLM 1

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................

© Blake Education – Ants Integrated Unit

7

Use some information books to help you find the answers to these questions.

How long have insects populated the earth?..................................................................................

How many kinds of insects are there in the world? ...................................................................

Name three insects that live in most people’s homes...........................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What are the three parts of an insect’s body called?...........................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

How many legs does an insect have?.........................................................................................................

Does an insect have a skeleton? What is special about it?...........................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Some insects are thought of as pests. Name an insect that is a pest and

write why this is so.....................................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What is one of the useful things that insects do?...........................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Write any other interesting ant facts on the back of this sheet.

Insect information



BLM 2

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................


8

Use the following words to label the ant.

Labelling an ant

antennae

abdomen

legs

jaw

compound eye

thorax

nodes

head



BLM 3

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................


9

Choose one type of ant. Use the following headings to help you to plan and then to write your report.

Kind of ant:.........................................................................................................................................................................................

General information:.............................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What they look like:.................................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Where they live:...........................................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What they eat:..............................................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Any other interesting information:.......................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Words to include in a glossary:................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

Write your ideas for diagrams on the back of this sheet.

Special ant report



BLM 4

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................


10

Use the clues to work out the missing words.

Crossword

Across

3 A room in an ant’s nest iscalled a ............................ . (8)

5 The .......................... links the roomsin the nest. (6)

6 The class that ants belong tois called ............................... (7)

7 ......................... help the ant tosmell. (They are sometimescalled feelers.) (8)

9 When queens and male antsfly away to mate it is calledthe .............................. flight. (8)

Down

1 Another word for an ant farm is a..................................... (11)

2 The grubs that hatch from ant eggs are called ....................... . (6)

3 The group that ants live in is called a ............................ (6)

4 The ......................... ant is only found inAustralia. (4)

8 The ............................. ant chooses the placefor a nest. (5)

9

5

7

2

3

1

6

8

4



BLM 5

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................


11

Ant trailsFind an ant trail to observe. Draw a sketch to show the section ofthe trail you will be watching. Record your observations below.

What are the ants doing? ...........................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What happens if you make a shadow over the trail?.............................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What happens if you dribble some water across the trail?.............................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What happens if you make a loud noise near the trail?.....................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

What other interesting things did you observe?..............................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................................................................................................................................



BLM 6

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................


12

Look at the ants in the picture. Guess how many ants there are ineach chamber.Write your guess down.Think of a way you couldget a more accurate answer.Write your new answer.

How many ants?

Guess.................

Check...............

Guess.................

Check...............

Guess.................

Check...............

Guess.................

Check...............

Guess.................

Check...............

Guess.................

Check...............

Guess.................

Check...............



BLM 7

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................


13

Draw your ant nest in Grid 1. Make sure you include six chambers,a queen ant, and interlinking tunnels. Of the six chambers:

■ 1 must be 5 boxes long ■ 2 must be 4 boxes long

■ 1 must be 3 boxes long ■ 2 must be 2 boxes long.

The queen ant should take up one whole box.

Use Grid 2 to mark off the squares you’ve guessed in your partner’s grid.

Ant battleships

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

A

B

C

D

E

F

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

A

B

C

D

E

F

Grid

1G

rid 2



BLM 8

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................


14

Cut out each sentence. Now paste them onto another piece of paper in the correct order.

In the summer, queen ants and males fly into the sky to mate.

The queen ant breaks off her wings.

Each larva makes a cocoon around itself.

The queen ant lays her first eggs.

Each of the young worker ants has a job to do to maintain the nest.

The next summer the queen lays special eggs that will hatch intomale ants and queen ants.

The eggs hatch into larvae.

The queen ant starts to make her tunnel underground.

The larvae grow and become too big for their skins.They moult.

The male ants die.

The pupae become young worker ants.

The queen ant looks for a place to build her nest.

The male ants and the queen ants fly into the sky to mate.

Each larva becomes a pupa.

The life cycle of an ant

✄

✄

✄



BLM 9

Name:.......................................................................................Date:.....................................................................................


15

Ant diaryDate: ..............................................................................

What the ants are doing:

..................................................................................................

..................................................................................................

..................................................................................................

What the ants have done:

..................................................................................................

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✄✄

Date: ..............................................................................


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Date: ..............................................................................


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Date: ..............................................................................


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BLM 10

Name:................................................................................................................Date:............................................................


16

How to set up an ant farm

B. What you do:

Step 1: ..............................................................................................

........................................................................................................................

........................................................................................................................

Step 2: ...............................................................................................

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Step 3: ..............................................................................................

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........................................................................................................................

Step 4: ...............................................................................................

........................................................................................................................

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Step 5: ...............................................................................................

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........................................................................................................................ The ant farm should look like this.

A. What you need:

......................................................................... ......................................................................... ..........................................................................

......................................................................... ......................................................................... ..........................................................................

......................................................................... ......................................................................... ..........................................................................


by kara louise munn · monster ant have students work in groups to make monster ants. encourage...

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