Fun Activities for Young People

Ants & Ladders

ants & ladders is a variation of the snakes and ladders game to help young people understand the consequences of ant invasions and poor biosecurity.

Print the first page of the ants & ladders pdf out on an A2 or A3 sheet of paper and play as you would normal snakes and ladders.

Feel free to customise the board to your own language or for a particular ant using the powerpoint version.

   

Crossword and wordsearch activities

Activities such as this crossword (solution) and wordsearches for younger (solution) and older (solution) children, help the children become more familiar with the words used to describe invasive ants and their effects. Links are included in the lesson plan pdf to solutions for all three puzzles. You can create crosswords using Teacher's corner resources for crosswords, word finds, and other resources.

We also have versions of a crossword (solution) and wordsearch (solution) in i-Kiribati language, that are more suitable for older children.

   

Match words to pictures

This matching sentences to pictures exercise (solution) is a fun way to reinforce the ideas that students have learned from the lesson plan. The ant life cycle exercise (solution) helps the children learn the unique life cycle of ants. It's this life cycle that makes ants so difficult to get rid of!

     

Colouring in

Pacific Invasives Initiative created this biosecurity poster for awareness and for colouring in. The poster shows how islands can look with and without invasive species. Ask the children to identify the invasive species. Ask them to spot the differences between the invaded and uninvaded island. Are any of these invasive species around where you live? What do they think the terms "prevention", "surveillance" and "rapid response" mean?

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content reviewed by Marion Saunders, Pinehaven School NZ, June 2016