For our home school, we teach the basics to the younger children–reading, writing, and arithmetic.  Then I choose different topics and activities for us to do each week that cover a wide range of subjects.

This is our character study on being productive following Gods examples of the ants.

This is a well known bible verse in our household.

Proverbs 6:6-8

Go to the ant, you sluggard;  consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler,  yet it stores its provisions in summer  and gathers its food at harvest.

Definition of a sluggard:  a person who does not like to do any kind of work, but likes to sleep or be idle all the day long, a lazy person.

Teaching concept:

We can learn from the ants and become wise.  The ants do their work even when they don’t have someone telling them what to do.  There is no need for checking up on them because they are diligent in their duties.

We made this craft to go along with our study

We took a piece of card stock and cut out an “ant hill” out of sandpaper and glued it on the card stock.  We then dipped our fingers into black washable paint and they made ants.  Yes they made many.    The child that made this one made 8 legs on the ant, but then I told her that a spider has 8 legs and ants have 6.  I think I have told you before, I have younger children doing these crafts and they are not super skilled:)  We drew antenna with black markers and wrote the bible verse at the bottom of the paper.

While they were doing this craft, I shared with them the story about ants.

Do you remember when we saw the anthill while walking along the bike path?  Do you remember what we saw?  We saw the ants scurrying here and there, going in all different directions.  Some were bringing out pieces of things, others were taking things into the ant hill.  They all seemed to be doing their own jobs.  Getting whatever they needed done, done.

I then said, have you ever seen ants just sitting around doing nothing?  Waiting for the Momma ant to come out and tell them what to do?  No, every colony of ants has a “queen” ant but she doesn’t tell them what to do.  She doesn’t organize them or give them pep talks, she is just busy laying her eggs.

All of the ants have a job to do. These are some of the jobs:

• Some are helping taking care of the baby ants or larvae
•  Some keep it clean and in good repair
• New quarters have to be built as the colony grows
•  The anthill needs protection from predators
• Some have to go out and find food

All of them have something to do, they don’t argue that someone is working less hard than they are, they just do what needs to be done.  If there is a mess, they don’t argue that I didn’t make that mess, they just clean it up.  God designed the ants and gave them the jobs to do.

We can learn to be more like the ants.  When we see something that needs to be done, we should do it.  If we see some crayons on the floor, we should pick them up.  Because we know crayons don’t belong on the floor.  We need to be wise ourselves and realize that is the right thing to do.

If we have chores, we need to do them without Mom, telling you to do them.  Everyday you need to remember to brush your teeth, pick up your clothes, and make your bed.   When you do these things without being told, you are being wise like the ants.

We then made some ants out of black poster board.  We cut out the pattern, so that we have 2 parts.  Used a paper hole punch for the leg holes.  Then each child pushed the pipe cleaners through the holes over top of the ant.  We wrote the bible verse on the card and stuffed it into his mouth.  We added googly eyes on top.

All week, we reinforced that we wanted to be like the ants, scurrying around getting their work done.

We made a snack out of peanut butter on celery with little raisin “ants.”

We then read books that had ants in them.  These were some of our favorites:

**note we are not being paid to advertise these books, we just enjoyed reading them.  Ordered them from our local library.

The Ant bully by John Nickle

Lucas is picked on by the neighborhood bully, and in turn terrorizes the ant colony. The ants create a potion that shrinks Lucas to the size of an ant. They put him on trial, and find him guilty of crimes against the colony — his sentence? To live and work as an ant! Lucas learns about teamwork and the importance of friendship–and in the end, he saves the colony and is returned to his normal size.

I saw an ant on the railroad track by Joshua Prince

When Switchman Jack sees a black ant strolling down the railroad track in search of a snack, he tries to reroute a 10-ton freight train. However, the switch is stuck, and, just when readers start to worry that there will be an ant-astrophe, the tale takes a turn.

Hey little ant by Phillip Hoose

What would you do if the ant you were about to step on looked up and started talking? Would you stop and listen? What if your friends saw you hesitate? That&’s what happens in this funny, thought-provoking book.

Ants don’t get Sunday off by Penny Pollock

Anya, a hard-working ant, longs for adventure but gets more than she bargained for when a heavy rainstorm disturbs the ant nest.

The ants go marching by Dan Crisp

The ants are marching through the rain, but there is always something to distract Little Ant!