And the Ants Go Marching Four By Four...

The little one stopped to shut the door and they all go marching down to the ground to get out of the rain...

Well, I, for one, can sympathize with the poor ants wanting to get out of the rain. March should be renamed to marsh. Yuck! But I digress...

My little man wants to have a bug cake for his birthday. As you may know, our household tradition is for the birthday kid to assist in making their cake. He is very excited about constructing bugs out of M & Ms. I thought it would be fun to make invitations with him also. My bright idea turned out super cute and wasn't too difficult. Even with an almost 4 year old who's attention span didn't last as long as the project.

Ant Invitations:

Needed:
Black Construction Paper
Orange Construction Paper (or other color)
Pipecleaners (3 pipecleaners make legs for 2 ants)
Glue
Tape
Scissors
Circular object or stencil (we used a glass)

Trace three circles on black construction paper. We traced 2 medium circles and 1 large circle. Cut circles out. Glue circles together overlapping enough to provide structure but not too much so that you lose the circular shape. We used the large circle for the bottom of the ant. At my daughters insistence, we drew lines across the large cirle to mimic the lines that sometimes show on the bottom end of ants.

Trace and cut out a cirle of the orange paper that is the same size as the circle used for the ant's head.
Use glue to adhere one edge to the underside of the ant head. The goal is to have the orange paper "open" like a mouth. Chose to write your party information before or after gluing the orange paper in place. (I found that it was easier to write before I glued)

Cut two strips of black paper approximately 5" by 1/4". Wind the strips around a pencil or a pinkie finger. Slide the strip off to maintain the curl. Add glue to the end of one strip and glue to the head for one of the antenna, repeat for the other antenna.

Take pipecleaners and cut in half (ours were about 5 inches once cut). Shape the pipe cleaners into a "U" and tape to the underside of the ant: one at the joint of the head and middle, one at the middle and one at the bottom. We bent the legs again to give each side a "knee".

You can add other embellishments: googlie eyes, tongues (it kind of reminds me of the Cootie game)

Now they are ready to be hand delivered.


My little guy posing with his ants and a "slice of orange". He cut out the ant on the left.