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(Don’t forget about the discussion questions and activities already included with each book! Use these extra ideas as a springboard to further enrichment of student learning.)
Activities for Meghan Rose Has Ants in Her Pants
LANGUAGE ARTS
- Read some ant related books. (Suggestions: Two Bad Ants,
by Chris Van Allsburg, or Antics by Cathi Hepworth.) Then
write your own ant adventure and make a class book. For children
needing assistance with writing, create a form. “Did
the ant see a ______? NO! It was a ________!” Higher
leveled students can write their own or, using the form,
create more than one set of sentences.
- Combine this idea with the art activity below. Write an
ad to sell your shoes! Use a lot of descriptive words.
- Make a list of words that rhyme with shoe. Take
notice of the different endings (ew, -oo, ue).
SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES
- Study ants. Good resource books include Ant Cities by Arthur
Dorros, Are You an Ant? by Judy Allen, and The Life and Times
of the Ant by Charles Micucci.
- Build an ant farm. I found some simple directions at http://www.googobits.com/articles/981-how-to-make-your-first-ant-farm.html .
- Combined with the art activity below, this story can be
used to introduce basic map skills. After each student makes
a house for their Spuddy Buddy (see art below), lay out green
butcher paper. Using the houses, build a tiny town. (Extra
town pieces are listed below under art.) After the town is
complete, make a class map of the town. You can then discuss
map terms such as compass rose or map keys. If you want to
take it even further, study different communities, jobs in
the community (maybe you need to make a Spuddy Buddy policeman!),
and so on.
MATH
- Meghan earned money selling potatoes. This is a great lead
in for talking about coin values and doing various money
activities.
- Meghan also had trouble waiting. This is a great lead in
for discussing and comparing the duration of various activities
and/or to talk about time.
- Using raisins to represent ants, set up an estimate jar.
Make sure you have a separate baggie with ten raisins in
it that students can use for comparison—otherwise it
is a guess and not an estimate.
ART
- Design a cool pair of shoes. They may have springs or rockets
or wheels or a telephone on the bottom; they may be red,
yellow, blue, or hot pink! Be creative!
- The book gives directions for making Spuddy Buddies. Now,
using milk cartons, papers, and imagination, have each student
make a house for their Spuddy Buddy. At the end, as suggested
under SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES above, the class may want to
combine their houses and make a 3-D town. Other things you
may want to include in the town include roads (strips of
black paper), stop signs (a sucker with a clay base), trees,
and so on.
- Using clay, students can make Spuddy Buddy pets. (When
you are done, combine this with math by making a floor graph
using the pet creations.)
MUSIC
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