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30min
Grades: K,1,2,3
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Who's the Boss of the Anthill?

LIFE SCIENCES

Get curious

10 min
Observing (10 min)

Go outside and observe what ants look like and how they behave. Try to find their anthill and see what does it look like.

Before the class, walk around the area where an anthill is located and which you have chosen for the lesson. 
Instructions
Ants & anthills

Get going

5 min
Talk (5 min)

Talk about how an anthill functions: what are the roles of particular ants.

The students already know what an anthill looks like. Now ask them, how they think: Can an ant live independently outside of the anthill? Who is the most important ant in an anthill? What does she look like? What does she do? What other ants live in the anthill? What do the workers do? What do the soldiers do?
The ant roles
12 min
Role-playing (12 min)

The students act out the role of ants from different castes, pretending to be the queen, the workers and soldiers in different situations that ants encounter.

Instructions
3 min
Summary (3 min)

Exchange impressions and sum up the anthill game.

You can ask the students: What can we compare the life/functioning of an anthill with?

How many different groups (castes) of ants are there in an anthill and what do they do?

If one ant is doing something wrong, or is working poorly, is everything still OK?

Get practicing

Observing

The students learn how other animals live in a group.

They can observe animals living in a group, e.g. in a meadow, a park or a forest. Alternately, they can use the internet or watch a wildlife film. They should choose one species of animal living in a group and prepare to give a short talk about how these animals’ lifes are made easier by forming groups.

Get ready

Class outside! Before the class find a place not far from school where there is an anthill. Alternately, if finding an anthill is difficult, find a place where the students can observe ants.

Note
Prepare accessories, which you will need for the Anthill game: 

  • 1 royal crown and scepter (you can use, for example, a paper crown or a hairband – a tiara, any symbolic objects)
  • 3 shields and swords (you can use toys or, e.g. make shields, and swords from cardboard, you/students can also make a shield using a lid from a pot, and a sword from a stick/rod)



Note

Get Curious


Observing: Observation of the ants

Get Going


Role-playing: Anthill game


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In this lesson, you will cover:


Basic Science and Technology.Primary 2.LIVING COMPONENTS OF THE EVIRONMENT.Animals [I].Objectives: 1. Collect and keep some common animals in the school compound. 2. Identify animals in school and home. 3. Identify the various uses of animals.

Life Skills:

  • Critical thinking and drawing conclusion

Authors

Author: Rafał Garlacz
Methodology: Karolina Hanus
Translation: Anna Spysz
Proofreading: Jason Lowther
Producer: Marta Przywara

Source

The work is a modification of lesson plan created by Children’s University Foundation under the CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 license.

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Who's the Boss of the Anthill?
The students will act out the roles of queen, workers and soldier ants, in order to understand how an anthill functions.

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