School Visits
A Little World of Ants
Glebelands Primary School
As part of Glebelands Primary One’s minibeast project, I facilitated an outdoor reading followed by ant-themed workshop for around fifty pupils.
The reading took place in the wee forest outside the school - a forest planted by Glebelands and Morgan Academy a few years ago.
After the reading, we used the Creature Collection activity sheets to explore the little worlds of insects in the wee forest, and used this collection to create lift-the-flap pages back in the classroom. We then had a Q&A and behind-the-scenes session, looking at how the illustrations and story were developed for A Little World of Ants.
Grange Primary School
To coincide with the Primary One classes’ project about minibeasts, I facilitated a reading and workshop themed around A Little World of Ants with the pupils.
The sessions consisted of a reading and short workshop with each of the classes, exploring outside on a bug hunt, learning about writing and illustrating books and making lift-the-flap spreads of their own.
I also brought behind-the-scenes content of the book so we could discuss different parts of the book making process, from illustrating, to writing and spotting the differences between older versions of the book.
Feedback from Schools
“The children really loved the visit and are still speaking about it.
The children had great fun listening to Cara reading her book and lifting the flaps to find the ants. They enjoyed taking their clipboards outside to hunt for and draw different bugs. They were so pleased with their final 'what's under the rock' picture."
Cara was great with the children and they enjoyed learning about how she became an author and illustrator."
"I liked looking for bugs."
"I liked the big ants Cara brought."
"I could spot the differences between her books."
Part 1: Reading session
Reading
The session began by having a discussion about what the children knew about insects so far, before reading out the book. The children helped with the interactive elements of the book throughout and by spotting different insects in the book.
Spot the difference
I brought along the old mock-ups of A Little World of Ants, and played a spot-the difference game with the class. With each change between the 2020 version and the 2024 version, the pupils guessed why the change had to happen, giving fun insights into working as an author and illustrator and with a publisher.
Behind-the-scenes
I brought along sketchbooks and artwork layers so we could discuss the making of the illustrations and text for the story. We talked about how everyone draws in different ways and how every illustrator draws in a different style.
Part 2: Workshop
Creature Collection
For the mini-workshops, we went outside to explore, and collect drawings of different creatures, with the ‘Creature Collection’ activity sheet. We investigated where we thought there might be insects hiding, and created our own characters based on the ones we found.
Who lives under the rock?
The children created their own lift-the-flap pages based on the creatures they found outside, using the ‘Who Lives under the Rock?’ activity sheet and oil pastels, creating their own version of the first spread of A Little World of Ants, and making their own little bug habitat inspired by the ones they saw outside.
Q+A
At the end of the session, we had a little Q+A, with lots of questions about the making of the book, drawing, writing stories, and enquiring if A Little World of Ants is sold in the North Pole.
