Hey Little Ant!

Have you read this book? It is one of my all time favorites! It was written by Phillip and Hannah Hoose. He and his daughter live right here in Maine. I love reading books by local authors to my kiddos! The story is about a boy who is just about to squish an ant with his shoe. The ant and the boy go back and forth giving their reasons for squishing or not squishing the ant. Another thing I love about this book is that it rhymes. I love rhyming books and so do my kiddos!!

On the last page of the book they have all of the words of the story with notes so you can sing the song.

As I read the story my kiddos got very involved in both the boy's and ant's argument about whether he should squish the ant or not. When I got to the last page they had definitely formed an opinion which led right into our opinion writing lesson.

I handed out this ant paper so they could start planning their opinion writing paragraph. They had to write whether or not the boy should squish the ant and give two reasons why. 

Once the planning was done they wrote their paragraphs. They did a fabulous job!!

Here is a sampling of their paragraphs. I thought they were adorable!

I think he should let the ant go free. I like ants. His one chip can help feed his whole town. He helps his whole town. He helps his whole family. I didn't like ants but now I do.






I think the boy should it be because it's not nice. Ants just don't know what they're doing. I also like ants. I am never going to squish an ant!

I think the boy should not squish the ant. Ants may be annoying but they are cute. Ants are funny. So don't ever squish an ant!

 

Science: Life Cycles

We have been learning all about Life Cycles! My kiddos love this topic and it really isn't hard to motivate them at all! We spent a lot of time researching the plant life cycle, pumpkin and apple life cycle, ant life cycle, frog life cycle, chicken life cycle and so many more. One of our favorite books that we used was My Book of Lifecycles By Camilla De la Bedoyere.

Great pictures and lots of cool facts. I liked it because there were animals that we usually don't study for life cycles. One of my kiddos always had this book in their hands.

To wrap up our life cycle unit I came up with these fun hands on projects. They helped me to assess what they had learned by seeing how they put the phases of the life cycle in order. I could also tell by how they labeled each phase.

Aren't they adorable????

You can check them out in my TPT Store!