Go to the Ant Lesson Plan
I taught my boys about ants, based on on Proverbs 6:6. Here is my lesson plan, based on Heart of Wisdom 4-step plan:
Step 1 Excite: Cause an Interest
Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! (Proverbs 6:6)
- Who wrote this verse? (King Solomon)
- What does it mean?
- Does God want us to walk on all fours like ants do?
- What can we learn from ants?
- What is character? What are character traits?
Physical traits describe someone’s appearance (tall, skinny, brown-eyed, curly-haired, petite, etc.). Character traits describe someone’s personality (brave, stubborn, bossy, polite, shy, etc.).
What do you think God wants us to learn about ants? Character traits or physical traits? As I tell you about ants, be thinking of their character traits.
Step 2 Examine: Find Out the Facts
Ants are social insects, which means they live in large colonies or groups. Some colonies consist of millions of ants.
Ants are hard workers. There are three types of ants in each species: the queen, sterile female workers, and males. Every ant has a job. Worker ants may have one job or several jobs. They may keep the same job all their lives or change jobs from time to time.
- Some workers gather food for the colony. When an ant finds food, it lays down a scent trail for others to follow to the food.
- Some ants store the food they harvest in special chambers in the nest.
- Other workers feed and care for the queen and her developing young.
- Still others build the chambers and tunnels. They use their saliva to make the dirt walls hard.
- Some worker ants are soldiers. They defend the colony and fight off their enemies (other ants or other kinds of insects).
The Bible says:
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men (Colossians 3:23)
Most ant species build underground nests. Worker ants dig tunnels and chambers, or rooms, in the soil. As the colony grows, workers add more tunnels and chambers to the nest. If you watch ants for any length of time, you will see that they really do communicate with each other—and very effectively, too!
Ant colonies can grow to be quite large. Some tropical ants build downward to make more room. Their nests may reach twenty feet deep/high. A group of nests may cover an area as large as a tennis court. Millions of ants may live in these nests.
Chambers:
- The queen has her own chamber for laying eggs.
- Some chambers are nurseries for the growing young.
- Food is stored in other chambers.
- Still other chambers are resting places for hard-working ants.
Watch this amazing video about a giant ant colony.
Scientists pour ten tons of cement down a giant ant colony and then excavate it. The ants removed forty tons of material to build this enormous colony!
This colony is the equivalent of the Great Wall of China. The ants also built purge vents all throughout the colony to allow their carbon dioxide to escape and fresh air to enter—they built their own air-conditioning system!
Ants Are Wise
Who has a garden this year? When I was a little girl we worked in the garden all summer. Once the plants were harvested, we “put up” beans, tomatoes, apples, etc., made jelly and jam, etc., to have food in the winter time.
In Bible times and pioneer days, almost every family had to plant a garden in the spring in order to have enough food for the next winter.
Ants also work in anticipation of future needs, gathering and storing food in warm weather, before winter comes.
It [the ant] has no commander, no overseer or ruler, the ant stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest. (Proverbs 6:7)
Ants, known for being industrious, are commended by God for their initiative. Ants have no leader—no commander to direct them, no overseer to inspect their work, no ruler to prod them on. People who act only when commanded to do not possess wisdom.
Do you have to be organized to make a garden? Does it take work, or do you just throw the seeds out in the yard??
Parasol Ants Can Grow a Garden
Parasol ants carry leaves like umbrellas. Then they find a place to plant their garden. They chew the leaves and make a pulp (that makes garden soil); then fungus grows on the pulp, which makes food for the ant colony.
Ants Cooperate
When the Amazon jungle floods, the ants have to protect the queen ant and her eggs from the water. Here is a photo of ants cooperating by linking their legs together to build a “boat” to protect their queen. Watch this video.
Step 3 Expand: Do Something with What Was Learned
- Now that you know a bit about ants, we are going to make a chart of ants’ characteristics and traits of sluggards.
- What are some of the ants’ character traits?
- The Hebrew word for sluggard occurs fourteen times in Proverbs. It refers to a lazy, shiftless, irresponsible person. What kind of traits does a sluggard have?
Step 4 Excel: Share What Was Learned
Prayer: Father, help us to learn from the ants. Help us cooperate and be responsible, diligent, hard workers.
Share what you learned about ants with your parents.
Will You Use this Lesson?
I can post more if you want them. I’d love to hear your comments.
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Thanks again Robin. I love getting new ideas and would welcome anything more you have to offer. (I rarely think to use YouTube resources, but really should!) Wonderful!
Thank you Robin! I have been wanting to get a hold of lessons on ants so I am excited about this one and using it in our homeschool!
) YES! Please post more.
Thanks, Robin,
I love all of your ideas, but this was great. The answer to your question is, Yes!! Please post more.
God Bless You
Oh, I love this! This is wonderful! I am definitely going to use this. We have a CD by Judy Rogers with the song “Go To the Ant” that my girls love. This is an exceptional way to expand their knowledge about the ant’s character (and what God wants ours to be.) Thanks so much!
Thanks… loved the ant lesson, will use it, and would use more. Love the younger kids stuff!
Thanks
This was great! Thanks for sharing. You whats nice when you share these lessons is that for those who have a hard time understanding the process of Heart of Wisdom they can use theses until they can do it themselves.
I was so fasinated by these ants I posted it on my facebook. I did offer to send the link so they can visit your site and see the lesson.
Your the best,
Kris
dear Robyn
We enjoyed your ant unit study tremendously. Used homeschoolshare lapbook on ants to supplement it! Please post MORE!
Hi Robin,
Thank you so very much!! Will definitely use this lesson! I also have a cd by Judy Rogers called Go to the Ant and a coloring book by her and Vic Lockman so this is such a blessing to me for my children.
Yes, please do post more! I am currently using your Heart of Wisdom unit studies and have read your Teaching Approach book but just don’t think I’m as good at coming up with unit studies as you are! You are gifted with that, I think. I will use whatever you post and appreciate it very much.
Kim
Yes!!!!! Thank you very much for doing all this legwork and planning for us!!!
[...] 4 step approach when putting a lesson together. Recently Robyn has put together a lesson on the Ant – it not only is a fantastic heart based lesson – it also shows how you can put a lesson [...]
I think this is great and plan to use it on Monday.
I would love it if you posted more.
Thanks,
Dana
Are you kidding me? A unit study posted by Robin using the Heart Of Wisdom Approach! WOOHOOOOOO! Not to mention we will be studying Ants soon, so this is incredibly timely for me! Thank you so much Robin. Anytime you want to post lesson plans like this one, please do. As a new homeschooling mom using HOW this is super helpful for me!
I posted it to my facebook profile: http://www.facebook.com/#!/NourishingTreasures
This is perfect, thanks! Will be using it this week.
This is soooo cool! I’m eleven and my sister is nine. We both really liked the videos! They were both super cool!
Post more!!!
Very nice post—very well done! God teaches us so much in nature. My father is a beekeeper and I’ve seen very similar traits with bees–diligence, cooperation & hard work. For years, I had an observation hive in my bedroom. I could watch them for hours.
thanks,
Scott
Thanks forsuch insightful lessons about the ants,God bless yyou.
Excellent! I plan to link to this. I have a children’s book coming out soon called “Emma Ant.” Thanks so much!
This was an excellent study! Thank you for sharing.
You bet we want you to post more!!! It’s people like us who encourage people like you to share with us lessons that we can share with other people who can benefit!!! Sorry. Just trying to give you a bit of a boost! My 7yr old boy is fascinated with ants. My older boy’s name is Andrew but we’ve always known him as “Ants”…LOL.
Keep posting Robin….and God give you wisdom for more interesting lessons!
this was great Robin, I even found myself secretly rooting for the ants in the flooded amazon video. LOL! Definately using this even on my older teen student! Thank you for sharing!!
Hi, This part of illustration is very touching. And I really wanted to change my working style.
Praise God.
Thank you for this, we will be doing our Ant Unit next week! I love what you have done especially the scriptures you have incorporated. Mellisa
[...] week! One of their Language Development posters is all about ants! We are going to do a little study on ants from Proverbs, [...]
[...] week! One of their Language Development posters is all about ants! We are going to do a little study on ants from Proverbs, [...]
[...] not sure if you checked out the study on ants that I put on my First Day of Summer post, but I liked it so much, that I’m posting it again! [...]
Thanks Robin! We love this, my son(8) and I. we will definitely be using for our upcoming Science/Nature lesson. With all the information you have already put up for us it makes things that much easier & backing it up with the Bible verses puts a positive result on the lesson. We would love more of these in the future please!
This is a great lesson to be taught as we come into the next school year. I really enjoy the lapbooks and such you offer free. I would love more lessons like this. Thank you very much.
[...] us want to learn to write faster, some of us want to learn Latin. Some of us want to be more like ants and less like sluggards. We all want to “count others more significant than [...]
This is fantastic and the kids loved it!! I loved the biblical application and I saw it greatly affected my kids in their diligence studies!! Wonderful work!!
yes I enjoyed it and would love to have something on the honey bee. my kddos are wanting to make a honey bee lapbook.
this is perfect timing!
This is wonderful Robin. I am very grateful for your ideas and your effort into all you put on your site. Blessings to you and your family from northern ireland. Shalom
Yes, I’d like to use this lesson and would like to see more.
Yes I will!! We just got an ant farm and this will be perfect! Thank you!
Love this lesson! Am looking forward to using it. Please make more!
Hello, I read your new stuff regularly. Your writing style is awesome, keep doing what you’re doing!
Hi there colleagues, its impressive post concerning teachingand fully
defined, keep it up all the time.
My Sunday school lesson is on Proverbs 6:6. Your material was very helpful! Thank You!
lOVE IT! lOVE IT! lOVE IT!
Thanks Robin i got some key things i needed, God bless.
[...] about ants! And then open your Bibles and learn about what hard workers they are! We did this ant lesson from Heart of Wisdom last year as part of our First Day of Summer fun. I still have this great little gem comparing [...]
Thanks, am grateful with the exposition l have just been blessed with it, now l got better understanding on the teaching on ant. God bless u
Really enjoyed all the lesson ideas, worked really well. Did purchase go to the ant cd by Judy Rogers. Would not recommend it, mentions man with a gun and you hear an actual gunshot, highly inappropriate with all gun violence against children.