Gettin' Antsy!

I put up my end-of-school-year display today. I had each of the kids make an ant. I originally cut out a bunch of circles from different colored paper. The kids glued 3 circles together, added legs, antennae and eyes. As they were coming together I thought they looked more like caterpillars.

And then my boss walked in and said, "Ooh! Caterpillars!" So I ended up scratching that idea and coming up with a new one rather quickly. I cut "lemon" shapes and circles out of black construction paper. The kids glued two lemon-shapes together and one circle for the head of the ant. I randomly cut a bunch of small rectangles for legs, without worrying too much about making them all the same. The kids glued six legs on their ant.

I also cut out some longer rectangles for the antennae. We used neon wiggle eyes to add some color to our ants. The kids drew on a smile with a metallic Sharpie.

I hung them in the hall with the title, Gettin' Antsy For Summer. Under each child's ant, I wrote their favorite thing to do in summer.

Check this one out. Her response was to "squish ants" and she actually drew the mouth of her ant wide open, instead of a smile. So I couldn't resist having a little fun with that and I made a thought bubble above the ant's head that said, "Yikes!"

LOVE IT!

And in case you are wondering, I let the kids take home their "caterpillars" after they drew in some eyes. (I had torn off the wiggle eyes so we could use them on the black ants.) I'm so glad I changed the craft a bit because I love how they turned out! And now I am going to carefully clean my camera lens because I think I see a smudge...

Fun Fact: Ants have two stomachs -- one for themselves and one to feed others.