Ideas
and experiments for at home
Leaf
greeting cards
Take home some leaves from the woodland, put them into a
flower press or between the pages of a thick book and let
them dry for a week. Glue them on some blank greeting cards
or a sheet of card and write your own message into it.
Make
your own woodland
Go on a woodland walk with a pair of old wooly socks over
your shoes. Try to stay a bit off the path. When you come
home, pick off all the seeds and things that were stuck on
the sock and plant them into a container full of compost
and wait a few weeks, there might be a new forest
growing...
Make a
log book
Make you own “log book” by taking an empty exercise book
and write down all your walks to the woods, which animals
you have seen, which plants were flowering and stick dried
leaves into it. You will see after a few times that the
woodland has many seasons and each time you go there, it
will be different.
Build a
Bird Feeder
Make an
ant farm
Please ask an adult to help you with this project!
1. Purchase a fish bowl at
your local pet store. You can also use a large glass jar.
2. Place an unopened can on the inside of the bowl or jar.
This makes it easier for you to study the ants. Since the
ants can't enter the jar, they'll build tunnels along the
outside of it which you'll be able to see through the
glass.
3. If you're using a jar, punch holes in the lid of the jar
so that air can circulate through your new ant farm. If
using a fish bowl, stretch a piece of breathable material
such as muslin across the opening and secure it with a
rubber band.
4. Fill the jar halfway with soil.
5. Now it's time to find an ant colony! One place to look
is under decayed tree branches. Wood ants often live in
these branches. If you break the branch and ants come out,
take the branch home to use in your ant farm. If this isn't
fruitful for you, try searching for a colony to dig up. Dig
the colony up along with some of the surrounding soil and
add it to the farm. Be sure to get a queen ant as the ant
colony will eventually die without her. Be careful to avoid
getting fire ants since they're aggressive and may bite.
6. Be careful when removing the queen. The worker ants are
programmed to "honor and defend her" and may bite you or
your child.
7. Once you have the ants in your ant farm, cover the
outside of the jar with a piece of black construction
paper. This keeps the light out which encourages tunnel
building. You should start to see tunnel formation after
about 5 days.
8. Ants can only survive a short time without moisture. To
give them water, place a water soaked cotton ball into the
jar. Soak the cotton ball in fresh water on a daily basis.
9. You can feed your ants by giving them bread crumbs
soaked in syrup, cracker crumbs, and bits of fruit and
vegetables.
10. You can enjoy watching your ants hard at work by
removing the black paper from the outside of the jar and
studying their behavior.
This entertaining and fun child project can be a great way
to teach about the habits of ants and other insects.
Woodland
Puppet Show
On a walk through the woodland, gather branches, twigs,
leaves, seeds, etc. and bring them home. Take some fabric
and glue and try to make a few puppets with the gathered
materials. You could host a puppet show for your family
with the title: Where are all the fairies
gone...