Although the purpose of this blog isn't to promote products - even if they ARE educational toys! - I can't resist writing about the ant farm we got for two of our grandchildren that may go down in history as the first thing to distract them from video games! It actually lights up and has a gel that the ants appear to eat and dig their tunnels in as well. Our daughter loves it so much she goes into the room where the farm is lit up, to read. And she talked me into getting one for my office too.
Here it is, though this doesn't show how it lights up, which is especially cool!
What got my brain going was thinking how we've always compared hard workers to ants. Remember the Aesop fable when you were a kid about "The Grasshopper and the Ant"? The grasshopper has a "what, me worry?" attitude toward life (which Walt Disney made into a wonderful song in the 1934 cartoon that goes like this: "Oh, the world owes me a living..."). He's disdainful of the ant who just keeps plodding along and works hard to get the job done of preparing for winter. The climax of the story, of course, is that winter comes, and the grasshopper is in trouble because he's not prepared, so he learns a lesson from the ant. (In the Disney version, the ant kindly helps the grasshopper. I'll bet in Aesop's version though, that the grasshopper froze to death!)
Some of my students have told me that when they were in high school, they couldn't wait to graduate and "get out into the real world." Alas, after a few years (or even decades) in the real world, they realized that a high school diploma wasn't going to get them where they wanted to go. Sometimes they just wanted to feel more educated. Sometimes they realized they needed further training to achieve a goal they'd decided was worthwhile. But always, the lure of a diploma got them started. Many of them sign up for regular classes at Granite State College, and some sign up for adult online courses. We even have accelerated undergraduate courses, so you can complete some courses in as little as five weeks. (This is hardly the easy way out, though, because you're taking a full college course in that short time! But for some, it's a blessing to be able to squeeze in a course in less time than a regular college course.)
So I can't resist trying to make my readers decide whether they want to be a grasshopper or an ant...at least, metaphorically!
Meanwhile, I'll write again when my ants arrive in their heated package. (I kid you not - that's how they can mail them in the winter!) Now wouldn't the grasshopper have loved that?
Here it is, though this doesn't show how it lights up, which is especially cool!
What got my brain going was thinking how we've always compared hard workers to ants. Remember the Aesop fable when you were a kid about "The Grasshopper and the Ant"? The grasshopper has a "what, me worry?" attitude toward life (which Walt Disney made into a wonderful song in the 1934 cartoon that goes like this: "Oh, the world owes me a living..."). He's disdainful of the ant who just keeps plodding along and works hard to get the job done of preparing for winter. The climax of the story, of course, is that winter comes, and the grasshopper is in trouble because he's not prepared, so he learns a lesson from the ant. (In the Disney version, the ant kindly helps the grasshopper. I'll bet in Aesop's version though, that the grasshopper froze to death!)
Some of my students have told me that when they were in high school, they couldn't wait to graduate and "get out into the real world." Alas, after a few years (or even decades) in the real world, they realized that a high school diploma wasn't going to get them where they wanted to go. Sometimes they just wanted to feel more educated. Sometimes they realized they needed further training to achieve a goal they'd decided was worthwhile. But always, the lure of a diploma got them started. Many of them sign up for regular classes at Granite State College, and some sign up for adult online courses. We even have accelerated undergraduate courses, so you can complete some courses in as little as five weeks. (This is hardly the easy way out, though, because you're taking a full college course in that short time! But for some, it's a blessing to be able to squeeze in a course in less time than a regular college course.)
So I can't resist trying to make my readers decide whether they want to be a grasshopper or an ant...at least, metaphorically!
Meanwhile, I'll write again when my ants arrive in their heated package. (I kid you not - that's how they can mail them in the winter!) Now wouldn't the grasshopper have loved that?
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