Ant has a problem,

telling the story, making a ant nest and bugs hotel

Story: How the fox punished his tail

Telling the story: How the fox punished his tail
Group 1: 3 years old
Group 2: 5 years old

Ant has a problem!!

The children of Correeira's Kindergarten made beautiful draws about the ant's story.

Dramatization of the story "Ant has a problem" Class's 5 of Correeira's Kindergarten.

Floepje and water - Belgium sroty

THEME: HOW PURE IS OUR WATER?

CHILDREN AGE: 6-7 years

OBJECTIVES:
- The child is able to assess the purity of water. The child knows that we have to use and maintain water sparingly.
- The child is able to discuss how we can save nature.
- Measurement of liquid with the agreed unit of measurement. The child is able to compare the quantities (the amount of dirt on the filter).

USED MATERIALS, TOOLS: bottles for collecting water and snow, transparent cups, white coffee filters, magnifying glasses, papers, pencils.

PREPARATIONS: Teacher has to prepare the trips path to the river and to the sea. And organize other needed materials.

ACTIVITY:
Teacher reads the story "Lope (Floepje in Estonia) and water" to the children. Children tell together a the story with their own words and discuss the content of the story. Have children seen trash in the nature? How did it got there? What can we do to prevent garbage from getting into nature? What can children do to save water?

The teacher is telling that today we will compare the purity of water and to collect water we will go for a little trip. The teacher is explaining the objectives of the hike and agrees on the rules how to behave in hiking.

In front of the kindergarten the children gather snow for melting. They observe and touch - which is snow? Where it comes from? What it consists?

Then they hike to the riverside, where they take a water sample with bottle. They observe and describe the river and which is the river water at the moment, why is part of the river frozen and other part not?

Then they move to the seaside and take a sample of water from the sea. They observe the sea, compare it with river. Which is sea water, how is it with ice?

Back in kindergarten the children measure equal amount melted snow water, river water, sea water and tap water into transparent cups. They observe with naked eye and with magnifying glasses the water darkness and sort the cups according to the darkness of the water

The different waters will be poured through filters and then they examine the sediment left on filters. The children compare the amount of dirt left on filters.

In a joint discussion round they talk, what they found from water? Which from the water can drink and what not?

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.

 

Ant has a problem - Belgium story

CHILDREN AGE: 5-6 years

OBJECTIVES: 
- The child makes difference between good and bad behavior. The child acts purposefully. The child is able to concentrate for half an hour. The child uses discussion dialogue.
- The child knows and describes local home and forest animals, birds, bugs and plants. The child knows and names natural sites in their home area (river, swamp, forest).
- The child can tell the story, the sequence of events, causes and behavior of the characters through adult guided questions. The child can discuss and express own opinion.
- The child can count, name previous/following number, knows numerals. The child knows terms heavy, lightweight. The child can estimate distance by eye, measure length and width with agreed measuring instruments (glass, cups). The child compares and sorts up to 5 objects by size.
- The child uses creatively geometric shapes. The child can make from modeling clay small and mini sculpture, modelling from one or several pieces and make it one whole.

USED MATERIALS, TOOLS: modeling clay, illustrative materials, nature pictures, magnifying glasses, notebooks, backpacks, camera, flashlights.

PREPARATIONS: 2 activities: first activity in grouproom listening the story, modelling and discussing the story and second activity in forest walking, noticing surrounding and exploring with magnifying glasses. The teacher puts ready all needed materials for the kids, pictures from the story characters, modelling clay and modelling bases. To taking into the forest magnifying glasses and camera.

ACTIVITY:
The teacher reads the Belgium story "Ant has a problem". Because the children can and really love modelling, they will try this time to make mini-sculpture from bugs, to make it from one piece modelling clay. The teacher shows at first how to do it. After that the children sit behinde the tables and model snail, ant, bee, cherry or cricket. At the same time the teacher reads the story and stops on the key questions and asks them. The children answer. All who want to answer get the opportunity. The teacher observes that all children who want will get the opportunity to answer. They also discuss answers. Teacher writs up children discussions and more interesting arguments. The mini-sculptures that are ready will be put on a base with the childs name in exhibition.

After that the children dress, back the backbags and go to the forest walk with the teachers. They make stops and notice surrounding nature, trees and earth. From the backbags they take magnifying glasses and explore interesting things, searching for bugs and plants, tree and bush buds. Because our nature is under the snow we will see the first pieces of grass and moss. It is interesting to find spring awakening or first movements in nature. On the walk in the forest the children touch the trees, feeling the bark roughness or smoothness with hands, touching big stones, branches and so on. The children determine different materials, name them and describe what they see and what they feel with hands. They compare trees sizes, length, width and shape. When they talk about snails, ants, crickets and bees the children know that they are sleeping and they will wake up when spring is here. Outside they can do the bugs sounds and listen the sounds of the forest and be very quiet. While walking we can hear different sounds, like snow under our boots, braking ice, water guggle, water squelching or braking of the branches. The children tell what they see and show other children and teachers. During the conversations they discuss the Belgium story and the children answer what did the ant learn. We also learn what the children learned from the story. The children gives examples from their own problems and experiences.

CHILDREN THOUGHTS AND DISCUSSIONS:
- At first the ant felt bad but then he was good and kind
- If somebody wants to help then take it
- The others have to get a fee for helping
- If somebody helps you, then you have to help them, thats why he had to make that they get something sweet to eat
- The ant found out that you have to be kind
- Rude
- Cruel
- Bad
- Meanie
- He wants it for himself because he doesn´t want others germs
- He wants to eat it by himself
- Because he is enviou

Ant has a problem - Belgium story

CHILDREN AGE: 4-5 years

OBJECTIVES: 
- The child knows that helping others and sharing are very important and necessary skills for life.
- The child gets acting experiencec, developing self-confidence and fantasy.
- The child knows in more detail four new bugs and animals.

USED MATERIALS, TOOLS: paper, cardboard, felt-pens, hula hoop, gouache colors, pencils, pine tree thorns

ACTIVITY:
1. The teacher reads the Belgium story "Ant has a problem" to the children. They discuss that must help each other and sharing with friends is important. The story will be read several times during the week so the children remember it.

2. Making anthill from pine tree thorns. Creating ants home.

3. Making and coloring masks for the story dramatisation. Each child colored one character from the story. We made more ant masks so that every child has a part in the play. They also made one big cherry that the ant tried to take home.

4. Teacher and the children together stage the play. So that everybody could participate they have main characters and others are ants who come to cherry eating party. Teacher has written the play a little bit shorter according to children age. The nervousness before going to the stage is read from their faces. Children enjoyed the play very much and the courage increased significantly.