Learning with Stories

There are lots of great ways to learn, and one of our favorites is through stories and poems. Engaging with characters in a story and enjoying the rhythm, sounds, and figurative language in a poem can make the facts in these pieces all the more memorable for readers of all ages. In the latest issues of Zootles, you can find both a story and a poem. The poem “Ants at Work” explains the way that different kinds of ants in a colony take on different tasks and work together. Young readers will learn about ants whose jobs include digging tunnels, guarding the nest, and taking care of the baby ants—ask your kids if they can think of jobs like these that people have!

This issue also includes a story about a day in the life of two worker ants, sisters named Meena and Attalina. Reading about their adventures cutting leaves to haul back to their nest will make learning about leaf-cutter ants more fun and memorable. Maybe when your children have finished reading the stories and poems in Zootles, they’ll write a story of their own!

Amazing Ants

You might think that humans don’t have much in common with ants—how could we be much like these tiny creatures? But if you read the latest issue of Zootles, you’ll find lots of things that we have in common with these industrious insects!

Both ants and humans use their bodies to sense the world and get around, but we do so in different ways. Ants and humans both use their legs to walk, but ants also use them to hear. Instead of having ears like we do, they sense vibrations with their knees to learn about their surroundings. Communication is important for both humans and ants, but we do so in different ways. While humans communicate through speech, gestures, and other means, ants use their antennae to communicate.

Ants also have different jobs, a lot like humans do. Some ants are workers who collect food for their colony. Others take care of the queen and her larvae in the nursery. There are other ant workers who serve as soldiers to defend the colony and builders to keep the ant hill tunnels ship-shape. Can you think of jobs that humans have that are like these ant jobs?