I have wrote quite a few posts about one of my favorite websites to visit for educational toys and games - Educational Insights!  In fact Dilly and Sugar are receiving a couple Educational Insights presents for Christmas.  The Playfoam will make awesome stocking stuffers and I know Dilly will go crazy for the Crazy Creatures board game.  Plus Educational Insights makes shopping super easy for parents and teachers alike.  All I have to do is click the parents tab, then select “Early Learners & Preschool” and BAM!  I have a whole selection of toys and games perfect for my girls.  It’s really that simple.  Today I wanna tell you about a really neat product that you can find at Educational Insights that is perfect for boys and girls of all ages.

Dilly had started to acquire an interest for bugs.  She likes having other people catch the bugs so she can look at them in her GeoSafari Jr. Bugnoculars – which are actually pretty neat.  It has built in twin 3x magnifiers which allow little ones to get a closer look at not only bugs, but anything they can come up – and let’s just say that three year old imaginations can run wild, hehe!  The bottom is also water tight so they can even put tiny fish or tadpoles in to observe them.  Plus the top has special air holes so their new found friends will be able to breathe and a handy dandy handle for those on the go kiddos.  Since she had such a fun time with her GeoSafari Jr. Bugnoculars I thought why not bring the bugs inside…. now you’re thinking “Mama Harper’s done lost her mind,” but I assure you the bugs were very secure in Dilly’s new ant farm!

The ant farm Dilly received was nothing like her daddy had when he was a little boy.  This is a fancy schmancy GeoSafari Ant Factory!  It measure 9″ high by 15″ wide and comes with everything you need to create your own lil ant habitat.  Each set includes a 24-page guide book with ant care and colony observation hints, water dropper, unique Sugarcement sand, canal starting tool, and certificate to obtain ants by mail ($2.00 fee required for shipping, handling, and insurance).  As soon as we received our kit I sent out the order form to receive our ants.  I do want to mention that when you mail order ants they do not include a Queen because it is illegal to ship Queen ants in the United States.  This means that no matter how well you take care of your ant farm they will eventually die off because they can not reproduce and I made sure to explain this to Dilly before starting our ant farm.  I did however go online to see how to catch a Queen ant and I think next year we might try that…. if I am lucky enough to find one.  However, with using the ants that come in the mail they still lived for a good couple months with proper care.

Dilly and I had a fun time putting together the ant farm and preparing it for her new friends, hehe.

After we were done setting up the ants new home and a few days had gone by we found this!

Many days I would find Dilly just staring at her ants watching them move food or sand to build new tunnels.  Since she is only three we didn’t go too in depth with science about ants, but she did think it was amazing that such little insects could do so much.  It was truly a neat experience.  Interested in purchasing an ant farm?  Educational Insights has quite a few you should check out and this one can be purchased for $29.99.  And guess what?  One of my lucky readers will win the same ant farm and bugnoculars!  No worries – the farm is very secure and the ants will not escape… unless your little one lets them out, hehe.  And well since Dilly doesn’t like to actually touch the bugs that was never a worry for us.  And so you can enter on the Rafflecopter form below, but first I want to share some interesting ant facts….

10 Fascinating Facts about Ants

1. Ants are capable of carrying objects 50 times their own body weight with their mandibles.
2. Soldier ants use their heads to plug the entrances to their nests and keep intruders from gaining access.
3. Certain ant species defend plants in exchange for food and shelter.
4. The total biomass of all the ants on Earth is roughly equal to the total biomass of all the people on Earth.
5. Ants sometimes herd or tend to insects of other species, like aphids or leafhoppers.
6. Ants will enslave other ants, keeping them captive and making them do work for the colony.
7. Ants lived alongside the dinosaurs.
8. Ants started farming long before humans.
9. Some ants form “supercolonies,” massive communities of ants that can stretch for thousands of miles.
10. Ants follow scent trails laid by scout ants to gather food.

Pretty neat, huh!  Now get to entering…