It’s Flying Ant Day
| Links to the story | Key Stage 2 and 3 programmes of study | Possible learning outcomes | Big ideas |
| link to story |
describe the… life cycles of… an insect (KS2, Year 5) |
Know about the colony structure of ants Know about their keystone role in Nowhere Wood. |
flow and recycle adventures in time and space being and becoming life depend depends on life organisms are organised pass on information summer stories the environment |
Flying Ant Day marks the start of the new year of the ants. By moving away from the parental colony, the new queen can colonise areas, with, hopefully, less competition. It explains why ants are such successful colonisers.
In the story, I describe ants as “pirates”. This is certainly true of some species (such as wood ants and red ants). As we saw, some species tend blackly like farmers (the black garden ant), some are specialised by living in rotting wood, leaf litter or acorns (Temnothorax nylanderi). There are over sixty species of ants in the UK, and they represent one of our most important groups of insects.