With so much time spent outside during our most beloved summer months you can’t help but to observe all the different little creatures living alongside with us. In any case, I try to encourage boys to observe and teach them what I know. In general we try to never give boys a negative opinion about a living thing. I tell them that everything has a role to play to keep all that surrounds us healthy and thriving. Even flies, whom I personally really dislike… 🙂 Although to be perfectly honest there are few bugs that boys don’t view so positively (mostly those destroying plants in then garden) and that’s of course due to our own attitudes to them.

Recently we’ve discovered a new serious of beautiful children’s books about insects. Each book has great little bits of information about the respected creature and the illustrations are just most beautiful and realistic. And so I was going to do a post about this series. But it turned out that on some of the insects we’ve already accumulated a little bit of a collection of other good books and even little plastic insect models. So, to give them proper spotlight, I’m doing a post on some of these books separately and then will share all of the other books together.

FUN ANT FACTS:

• Ants have specifics jobs they perform
• The ants we see out and about are all females
• Some ants live as long as 30 years!

So here is our little ants collection. Each of these little books is quite different from the other ones and together they give great overview about these industrious little creatures.

Best introduction:
Are you an ant?

I really really love this book. I think this book is the best introduction to the subject of ants. It is so beautifully illustrated and teaches little facts about them in a very affectionate way. Here are few of its pages to give you a better idea.

Where to buy

Also, I wanted to include the link to this book on ThriftBooks.com website, as you can get used copies there in excellent condition for half the price of those books on Amazon.

The Life and times of the Ant

This book is a wonderful follow up, as it give more detailed information about ants, such as how they communicate, how the manage ant hill, the different types of ants that are out there and more fun details.

Where to buy

Here it the link to this book on ThriftBooks.com website, also for less than $4!

The Ant Facts

This book has beautiful photography of ants and that is the main reason it is included in our ant study collection.

Life cycle on an ant

And here is our plastic models showing the life cycle of an ant. I always try to find a real life objects to go along with what books teach about. I think it is very important as it helps in making things you read about more real and more memorable. And it also goes right along “learning through play” concept, as boys love playing with those as their little toys.