The Great Ant Debacle of 2012?!

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I have ambitious plans this September to supplement the Ants story from our Harcourt Trophies anthology with a mini science unit on the little buggers.  But if I'm going to be completely honest here, I'll have to admit I'm having some reservations.

This could very well turn into the Great Ant Debacle of 2012.  I've never used an ant farm before and I'm not quite sure how they expect me to get a hundred or so ants between the two sheets of plastic.

While some teachers of the crunchy variety might enjoy getting out in nature and actually collecting their ants themselves, perhaps luring them with little ant snacks, there are others- and I'm not naming any names here- who'd rather spend that time on the Internet googling ant farms with the ants already enclosed (no such thing, in case you're wondering).

This city girl's plan is to buy the farm and the ants online and convince a less bug phobic colleague to set it up for me. Then the fun starts.  I'll make these adorable brown bag flip books with the kiddos.  Each day, there will be a 15-20 minute lab activity which will require them press their noses up to the farm and observe what's happening. 

I listed the Brown Bag Flip Book packet in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  In addition to the five lab activities, it includes a grading rubric, and also a blank ant themed page for you to use as needed. 

If you end up using it, be sure to write and let me know how it went.  (But I'm not liable if you find yourself in the middle of a Great Ant Debacle with those suckers crawling all over your plan book).

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