Rainforest, Snow, & Ants

So, we've been learning about the rainforest...fun topic that I haven't taught in awhile (use to teach it in 1st, when we took 4th quarter & learned habitats).  We were filling our Kinders - giving those littles some background knowledge for this:

So we had a week of lessons & then Ol' Man Winter paid CO a visit...and boy did he come big!  So, we had a snow day & on the day of our field trip.  My phone & emails were pinging like crazy @ 6am!!

Have you ever rescheduled a field trip?  We haven't...until Friday arrived (and I must admit we panicked a little, I mean...it was A LOT to coordinate the 1st time!).

But our district transportation department was so willing to make it work & the theater...BLESS the good Suzanne at Cinemark Theater - I mean she helped us come up with plans A, B, J, R, etc.  We got it all worked out & so tomorrow (although not a Fri. or ideal mid-week) we're headed to the movies, with 150 Kinders & chaperones.  No popcorn though...kinda sad about this!

Oh, and the ants...well we found a recipe for the ant gel & a new company this year to send LIVE ants {last year we were mailed dead ants & the company refused to replace them!}.  Because the rainforest is dependent on decomposers - thanks to ants & beetles who keep that forest floor neat and not full of debris!

This ant farm is fascinating to me....I watch it obsessively, *just like my Kinders*:

Happy Monday,

Miss Kristan King

Ant Farm Revamped!

So, a few years ago while shopping on Amazon.com {my favorite online place to shop} I stumbled upon a "Space Age Ant Farm."

I was pretty curious...so I bought it.  It was only $20 & free shipping (Amazon Prime).  Well, I never got the card-thingy that tells you how to get the ants shipped - this was 3 schools ago & well it just slipped my mind after all the moves throughout my career.

Well, my teamie saw this ant farm in my closet-o-shame (AKA: storage room with shelving) in January when we had a PD day & I was attempting to turn said closet-o-shame into a storage room AGAIN {yes, I walk into it and feel like I belong on an episode of "Hoarders"}.  She was like, "What is that?"

I responded, "An unused ant farm."

She said, "Umm, it has gel - NOT sand...how does it work?"

So I proceeded to:

1. Dig for the box
2. Find the directions
3. Locate AntWorks in Amazon.com on my Mac

She was just as amazed as me (circa 6 years ago) & she ordered them for my teamies...then, she even called AntWorks & figured out how to reorder gel & ants for me!!

She ROCKS!

So today, while 3-5th graders were taking TCAP you could hear the squeals of our 6 Kinder classrooms - 1 guess about what got delivered TODAY!

I pretty much had to spend the afternoon taming the wild entomologists...they were STOKED!

It is cool - here's a pic:

Day 1

I'll post more pics soon...they're starting to tunnel!  Tomorrow we're reading Ant Cities...I hope I can contain their excitement...well throughout the testing windows anyway.

Miss Kristan King