Our Class Pets

Introducing our latest addition to the class: Ants! 

The kids really loved the ants, they had so many questions and had a hard time trying to decide on a name for the queen ant especially.  Our ants are called Camponotus Irritans, a species of carpenter ant.

Some things we learnt: 

- Carpenter ants typically spray a defensive chemical of formic acid, and we should not let them feel threatened, lest they get intoxicated in the small area. That is also why we don't feed them live insects as they put up too much of a struggle.

- Ants are colour blind to red, so the red film lets them think that they are in darkness, like they are underground.

- Ants like to be clean, they would groom themselves and each other, and push dirt/rubbish to one corner to keep the area clean.

- Ants have different roles to play. There are ants who would be taking care of the queen and the eggs (chamber maids), ants who go out to gather food (scout/worker ants) and when the colony gets larger, there would even be larger ants (major/soldier ants) which would protect the colony.

I cut a live mealworm and placed it in for the kids to observe. The scout ants (2 of them, usually the same 2) would be the ones going out to find food before reporting to the colony. The day before, the ants had a cricket for their meal. 

Many of the kids have volunteered to feed the ants, we will start a roster from next week onwards. One of the boys brought a mealworm home in his hand to keep as a pet. He told me that he fed it oats. 😅

Not sure when the novelty would wear off, but we hope to keep the colony growing and when it's big enough, we can upgrade to a bigger tank.

For this weekend, our journal is about pets! For those kids who don't have pets, they could write about what animal they would like to keep as pets. 

Wishing all a good and restful Labour Day, and to Muslim families, Selamat Hari Raya!