A is for Ants:: Themed Activities

 A is for Ants means three things to me: ants as in insects, ants as found within words and ants as in automatic negative thoughts.  I cannot do any of them justice here but will start off a long list of ideas that we may add to over time.  

Music/Math/Literacy: The Ants Go Marching One by One book/poem/song. I will do a separate post with ideas based on this book that will include more ideas for younger ones too.

Science: Read and Write about ants, ant homes, ants as insects, etc. Study them.  Make an ant home.

Art: Draw ants as cartoon characters or as part of science class or with the letter A

Word Families: Discuss rhyming words that belong to the same word family.  Have a picture of an ant, plant, hydrant, elephant, giant, infant, servant, antler, antelope and anteater.  They can be on a page with the words below for matching or the pictures can be around the room on "ant" cards and they can use magnifiers or binoculars to search for them before going outdoors and searching for real ants too.

Word Categories:  Label whether the "ant" words are nouns (list above), verbs (chant, grant, rant, implant) or adjectives (elegant, arrogant, buoyant, vigilant, instant, distant, important, brilliant, defiant, vacant) 

'Ant' Prefixes and Suffixes: As a prefix 'ant' or 'anti' means the opposite (antidote, antacid, antonym, antithesis) and as a suffix it denotes a person or thing who performs an action (servant, participant, immigrant, applicant,)

Idioms: What is an idiom?  What does "ants in your pants" mean? (impatience, restlessness). What does it mean to be called a "smarty pants"? (a 'know it all')

Antonyms: Opposites: Cut, match and paste two lists of words that are opposites.  Provide a word and see how many antonyms can be provided for that word. Discuss

Reading Activities: Books on ants.  Introduce The Canterbury Tales.

Automatic Negative Thoughts:  Changing Self-Talk to make it more positive helps people to improve their worldview and their attitude towards working on their reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. It helps with communication and social skills as well.  It can be worked in with the Zones of Regulation or done as an alternative approach to discussing difficulties and negative thinking.  Examples are the "I can't do it ant", the "always/never ant", the "labeller ant", the "fortune teller ant." and the 'fear ant." Scenarios can be written up and alternative, positive thoughts discussed to help build up their repertoire of skills.  I pair these activities with ant crosswords and mazes and jokes to help incorporate the concepts into their everyday world in a fun and unobtrusive manner.


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