About two years ago, we bought an ant farm from Hobby Lobby, Toys R Us, or a similar store. My daughter, who had just finished kindergarten, loved bugs. Since I homeschool, I wanted to take full advantage of this interest. So we opened the package and followed the instructions. Soon our farm was ready for its occupants. And that’s where our problem started.
The instructions read as if we could simply pluck up an ant, put it in the farm, replace the lid and repeat. Our first problem was finding ants. There was a huge anthill in the backyard, but the ants were INSIDE the anthill. The instructions stated not to disturb the hill, but to gather the ants that were traveling around it. But there were only, like, 2 ants on the outside. And after putting one ant in, it was impossible to put in another without the first escaping.
Eventually, in an attempt to get more ants on the OUTSIDE of the hill, we brought out an Oreo covered in Smuckers. MMmmm. Great ant food, right? No. Not at all.
So, we pretty much gave up.
But now my second daughter started kindergarten. I searched through all of my homeschool materials in search of the bright green ant farm to no avail. A simple Google search for “homemade ant farm” and we’re back in business.
We went to this site: http://www.allfreecrafts.com/nature/ant-farm.shtml. We found a large antique Smucker’s jar (how ironic, I know!) as the main part of the farm. Inside, we put a Crystal Lite cylinder in the center to encourage the ants to build near the glass walls.
[What is this? An advertisement for products with useful packaging? Maybe! I save *everything* and eventually I use it. ]
We put sand and rocks in the bottom. I suggest putting a layer of small rocks, then soil, not sand. Apparently the bottom should be wetter than the top. We took a shovel and dug into a large anthill in our backyard. There were hundreds of big black ants, perfect for our farm. We topped it off with sand. Again, I’m not sure that sand is such a good idea. Our ants seemed to have a lot of trouble moving it. Sand is so dry, and the slightest vibration makes it move and fall. But I had read at http://www.diylife.com/2008/04/22/make-an-ant-farm/ that sand/soil mixes were best.
That same site also recommended a really neat set-up. It said to leave the lid off of the jar. Place the jar in a pie tin of soil. Place the pie tin in a larger bowl with water. The theory is that the ants will be able to explore outside the glass jar, but won’t cross the water. Ants, supposedly, don’t like water and, therefore, will not enter it. Our ants, however, did not get this memo. They 
dove right into the water in a frantic display of splashing and drowning, amid the screams of my children and their neighborhood friends. To those of you without prior experience with pre-teen girls, when they scream, your eardrums will bleed. Just so you know.
Needless to say, we rescued the swimming ants and returned the lid to our jar. We already see tunnels and rooms, and the ants have begun to bring soil up to the top of the sand. My oldest has researched on Wikipedia about ant colonies and the queen. She told her good friend, “My mom thinks she saw the queen. It had wings, but it was small.” Her friend considered this a moment and then enthusiastically exclaimed, “Maybe it’s the PRINCESS!” Heehee!
filling a bird-watching notebook with pictures and identification markers for each bird she sees. She is planning a bird-watchers club, for which she has made posters and began a web site. This is an individual project that she did on her own. 
When you’re moving to a new house, you can uncover things about yourself and your family that might otherwise go unnoticed. For me, it was the paint under the kitchen table. One doesn’t often get the opportunity to clearly see the underside of her kitchen table. 
