The Ants Go Marching: Library Notes

 A Child's Play picture book based on the action song, The Ants Go Marching is a fun book that will engage your children and create a fun literacy experience. The benefits of a song base is that it increases the interaction with the written text. Pointing to each word as you sing along helps with word recognition and being able to 'guess' what the next word is for new readers.  This builds their confidence that they can read which makes the whole process even more encouraging for young readers.  The very clear pace and rhythm can help with a child with fluency and/or articulation difficulties, making this a great selection.

Other that reading the book with a child, there are many other ways to build positive interactions with the text. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Play the game "Spot It": Find the little one! What is he doing now?

Sing Along Time:  Get out toy microphones and instruments and enjoy the musical aspect of this book. Use cheerleader pompoms to shout hoorah and boom, boom, boom.

Rhyme Time:  What rhymes with one (thumb), two (shoe), three (tree)?  Can you find the word in the text? 

Fill in the Blank:  Repetition of the key phrase, the ants go marching helps prompt story recall.  Once they are familiar with the story, try leaving out key words for them to fill in. Use animated voices.

Gross Motor Activities:  Just like the ants, go on a march.  Go up and down. Expand to other animals. March like the ant. Waddle like a penguin. Jump like a frog. Crawl like a gecko and so on.

Fine Motor Activities: Try an anthill maze for fine motor practice.  Try tying shoes.  Write A is for Ant.  Line up cubes in rows on a 100 chart as you read along.  Fill in the boxes with the numbers

Crafts: Glue ant cutouts climbing on the letter A  Make a banner/flag/pompom to wave as you march.

Story retell: Put the pictures in the correct order: sucking thumb then tying shoes, then climbing a tree.

Science;  Discuss why ants would want to get out of the rain and why they are going down to the ground (ant homes...expand to other animals homes)  Discover if ants actually march in order.  Choose this book on a rainy day and talk more about the rain aspect of the story.

Numeracy: Practice number ordering and number recognition, counting 1-10 and multiplication.  Each page has that number of ants (2 rows of 2, 7 rows of 7) so that you can visualize and count out the ants.

Add in the ideas from the blog on A is for Ants.  Include antonyms, words with ant in them, automatic negative thoughts ants and so on to enhance the story and make a book so much more than just something you read.  It opens up a broader world to them with something for everyone to enjoy as we seek to build up the reading, writing, listening and speaking skills in children.


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