Use ant-themed books to introduce kindergarteners to your subject and help them practice reading skills. Step by Step Child Care gives a suggested reading list for children's books fitting with an ant-theme. The list includes "I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track" by Joshua Prince, "The Ants Go Marching One by One" by Richard Bernal and "Ants in Your Pants: A Lift-the-Flap Counting Book" by Sue Heap. After reading stories about ants, allow children to write or draw pictures to make their own stories about ants. Give the children each three paper circles to write or draw on and then attach them in the shape of an ant to make their ant story. Add paper antennae and legs to make the ant stories even more fun.
Perform a simple experiment about what foods ants like to eat. Ask children to make predictions about what kind of foods they think ants would like most. Obtain four or five of these foods and place them on a paper plate with sections marked off for each kind of food. Label each section of the plate with the food that was left there. Then place the paper plate outside in an area where ants are present. Check back on the plate after a few hours to see what foods the ants have taken.
Fingerprint ants are a great art project for young children. Give each child a piece of paper and have them draw a background for their fingerprint ants. Teach children about ants' natural habitat and have them incorporate this into their backgrounds. When the background is complete, give children a black ink pad and have them put three fingers into the ink. Keeping the three fingers lined up, help children place the fingers onto their paper, making a fingerprint ant. Have the children add antennae and six legs to each ant. You can use the fingerprint ants to help children learn that insects have three body parts and six legs.
Using ants is a fun way to introduce skip counting to kindergarten children. Use ant magnets and a large magnetic board, with a picture of a picnic attached to the board. Place a row of 10 ants in a line heading toward the picnic. Show the students that you can count the row of ants by ones to see how many ants are going to the picnic. Next, line the ants up in pairs. Show the students that you can skip count the ants by two. Explain that counting by twos is a faster way to get to 10. Then line the ants up in two groups of five and again show students that you can count by fives as an even faster way to count.