Ants!

Earlier this week we discovered two huge anthills in the Whispering Woods. When we were looking at them we had a lot of questions and were very excited to study them. So, today we had a chance to spend some more time observing the anthills and spent some time learning about ants.  We learned about ants by watching some videos, reading some books, and going outside to observe ants up-close using bug jars. We also spent some time observing the anthills.

We observed that the ants have 3 body parts. We learned that these body parts are the head, thorax, and abdomen. The ants also have 6 legs that are attached to the thorax and two antennae on their heads. The ants we saw had reddish heads and thorax and black abdomens with thin stripes. When we looked up Alberta ants on the computer we discovered that our ants look like Western Thatching Ants.  We aren't completely sure that our ants are really Western Thatching Ants, but the description of their hills matched the anthills we observed so we thought we must be on the right track.



After we had observed the ants up-close we read some more information about ants and then we went to observe their anthills. We noticed that the anthills had holes where the ants were moving in and out of the colony and that lots of the ants were busy moving twigs, leaves, and even other insects like ladybugs.

Here are some facts we learned today:
- Ants can create huge colonies underground.
- Their colonies have chambers and the chambers are connected by tunnels.
- The queen ant's job is to lay eggs.
- The female ants are the workers and do not have wings.
- The male ants have wings.
- Different ants have different jobs. Some are nurse ants who take care of the babies, some are guards, and some are in charge of bringing food back to the colony.
- Ants start out as eggs that hatch into larva.

At the end of the day Ms. Boyer and Mrs. Hamby gave each student who wished to have a speaking part their lines for the assembly. Please try to practice (and maybe even memorize!) your lines over the weekend so we can start rehearsing the assembly next week.  The assembly will take place on May 25 at 10:50am. 

We still have several students who have not returned their swimming forms. Please return the forms on Monday.

Our helper on Monday is: Jessica