After our visit last week with Katie from Wild Action Animals …

Sherry created a book …

which she to read to the children featuring all the animals …

and new information they learnt about them.

She does this every year following this or similar incursions …

as it is a great way to reinforce what the children have learnt.

It’s amazing to realise just how much information the children actually take in!

On each page the children were able to provide the information faster than Sherry was able to read it!

It just goes to show how easily a child will absorb things …

when they’re truly interested in a topic!

This book now resides in the children library corner …

where they have access to it whenever they like!

As the children are really enjoying our ant farm, we thought it would be a good time to introduce some ant stories onto their library shelves. One playful story they are enjoying is ….

I Saw an Ant on the Railroad Track by Joshua Prince

When switchman Jack, while eating his lunch by his shack, spies an ant walking along the railroad track he gets worried and knows he has to do something to help …

… before the little guy gets run over by the approaching train.

It’s a nice story with delightful language and illustrations and a happy ending!

Once we discoverd the collective nouns for ants were;

an army of ants – a colony of ants – a swarm of ants

It made us think of that great song, ‘The ants went (go) marching‘. So here are the words as we sing them -

The ants went marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching one by one,

the little one stopped to suck his thumb.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching two by two,

the little one stopped to do up his shoe.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching three by three, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching three by three,

the little one stopped to climb up a tree.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching four by four, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching four by four,

the little one stopped to shut the door.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching five by five, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching five by five,

the little one cheered HOORAY I’M ALIVE!

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching six by six, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching six by six,

the little one stopped to pick up some sticks.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching seven by seven, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching seven by seven,

the little one stopped to look up to heaven.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching eight by eight. Hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching eight by eight. Hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching eight by eight,

the little one stopped to shut the gate.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah!

he ants went marching nine by nine,

the little one stopped to check the time.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

The ants went marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching ten by ten, hurrah, hurrah!

The ants went marching ten by ten,

the little one stopped to say “THE END”.

And they all went marching down to get out of the rain.

Due to all the lovely rain we have experienced in Melbourne this week the children have had the most wonderful time playing in the soft damp, rich soil in an empty garden box in our playground. Apart from having awesome fun in the mud it has provided some much needed toiling to the soil, great preparation before we plant it out with spring flowers and vegies.

The children had the best time digging, mixing, pouring and scooping the wet and sloppy concoction of dirt, sand, tanbark, stones and herbs from our herb garden. All working together to create volume, several different projects were on the go at once.

Some children cooked up batches of stone soup and mud pies, delicious!

While others made cement to build a castle out of bricks and logs.

Another group of children created a dinosaur swamp …

… later turning it in to dinosaur stew … munchy, crunchy for my lunchy!

Working co-operatively together, the play went on all morning.

One of our dads who was helping out for the morning wasn’t too sure the parents would be overly thrilled with our mud patch fun, which as teachers we have all heard before. It’s sad, but all too often when parents say good bye to their children, they follow it up with “Have fun, I’ll see you later…. oh and try not to get dirty”. But you know what? Some of them did get dirty.  Actually some of them got really dirty!

They were having so much fun co-operating, communicating, socializing, enjoying, sharing, problem solving, discovering, laughing, experimenting, building, sampling, exercising, negotiating, imagining, believing and yes, getting a little dirty in the process.

Learning life skills in a mud patch.  How wonderfully perfect! 

Later in the morning, when the mud had dried and been washed from hands and brushed from pants and boots, we brought out the book “Wombat Stew”, a delightful story about a clever Australian dingo who catches a fat wombat he plans to cook up for his dinner. The wombat’s bush animal friends come to his rescue and sabotage the dingo’s plans by offering some very bad advice on how to make the stew more delicious. The dingo believes he has been poisoned by the terrible stew and runs away never to be seen again.

The story delighted the children and they laughed and chuckled their way through the  book as they loudly and proudly declared at the end, that their dinosaur stew was much more disgusting than the not so clever dingo’s wombat stew!

…oohey, gooey, yummy, chewy wombat dinosaur stew…