Ant has a problem - Belgium story

THEME: WHITCH IS HEAVIER?

CHILDREN AGE: 3-4 years

OBJECTIVES:
- Experiments with scales. Exploring different scales and weighing methods. Weighing different objects. Whitch is heavier, whitch is lighter?
- Walk to the forest to explore anthill. Whitch is anthill in winter? Does snow give warmth to the anthill? Why you are not allowed to destroy anthill? Exploring pictures of ants (head, body, feet). Exploring pictures of anthill and its inside (tunnels, eggs, ants). What do ants eat? How they get food? How do they work? (carring objects that are bigger than they). How do they cooperate to help each other?
- Getting to know numbers 1-10; comparing (heavier-lighter).
- Making anthill with its inhabitants. Molding anthill.

USED MATERIALS, TOOLS:
Story "Ant has a problem". Scales, differents objects for scaling. Pictures of ants, anthills. Gouache colors, brushes, buttons, silk paper, modelling clay and modelling sticks.

PREPARATIONS:
The story has been told to the chidren. Other materials are put ready for the activity.

ACTIVITY:
Teacher tells the story to the children. They discuss about it. We explain the importants of helping others and sharing with others. Thinking together, can we lift and move heavy and big objects? Exploring scales. Exploring how they work? How do we know whitch one is heavier?

 

Whitch is heavier and whitch is lighter? How can we determine the objects heaviness?

 

During the testing the children understand that heavier object falls down, lighter rises up. Sometimes we can tell by looking or weighing by hand how heavy the object is, but its always not true. It is more secure to use scale, you get more accurate answer.

Weighing different sizes numbers it turned out that bigger number weighs more. In the same time two numbers (3+3 or 2+2 or 4+4) weighed the same as one number (6; 4; 8); they were equal weight.

Walk to the forest to see anthill. We expore anthill in winter. What changes have occurred since spring and autumn in anthill. As we did not see the ants, we realized that they were sleeping in the winter. Snow gives the nest warm and protection.

 

When we came back from the forest we expored ants life and doings from the pictures. We expored the inside of anthills, where are the tunnels, where are the eggs, where the ants.

The children draw a picture of anthill with tunnels. When the paint dried, they glued ants from buttons and eggs from wrinkled silk paper.

 

The children were enthusiastic about the ants and anthill, and wished to make something more exciting. So we decided to model nice anthills and illustrate them with modelling sticks.