Ant Farm

I'm sorry but unless you have the parents permission I would not bring any type of animal or pet. Someone in that household might have an issue with ants. What we did with our daughter is the butterfly growing. Down here in Florida we have a butterfly world and you can get catterpillars and watch them grow to butterflies. The best part is they are easy maintenance. A few leaves or even some come with food on teh bottom already for them. A few air holes and it will cocoon and one day a butterfly. You let it go free and hurrah.

My son got this ant farm for Christmas.

http://fascinations.com/unique-toys-gifts/antworks.htm

The gifter also ordered the ants with information provided, and they were very promptly delivered, alive. :)

So far, the ants are thriving, with only a couple casualties. It is a really cool ant farm, with the clear blue gel. And it has blue LED lights underneath, that make it a cool nightlight also! (You don't have to use the lights, but it's a nice option. We keep ours plugged in all the time.)

I'd definitely recommend THIS ant farm for a gift, as we have had a great experience with ours. Those little ants are really fascinating to watch!

My son got an ant farm for Christmas last year. My SIL mentioned it to me before she bought it, to get my ok. I was a little concerned, but agreed because my SIL was so excited about the idea (her neighbor had one and loved it). This is the one her got http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjKEoSOoShk. We simply ordered from the back of the book. The ants arrived quickly and they were all alive. My son absolutely LOVED his ant farm. It became part of the bed time ritual to see how far they had dug. The light turned it in to a fun night light. My only complaint about it, was that the directions said the ants would carry the deceased ones to the top, they gave you tweezers to remove the carcasses. In our farm they died and stayed in an area on the bottom. So in the end here was a rather large pile of dead ants in the bottom. We rinsed it out in the end and used it as a light for a while. You can reuse the farm, but we just never got around to ordering more ants. It was great for us. I am glad my SIL was so enthusiastic! I have gone on to buy a few as gifts, but I do usually ask a parent before I bring it over.

I had ant farms for my kids and I swear we collected the ants ourselves from some hills and put them in the farm, but I have no recollection of how we actually did that! :( They did enjoy it, but I think the ants died within a few weeks. Which was a lesson in itself, maybe not enough water or some such, wish I could remember more. It was fun at the time tho. Sorta like Sea Monkeys, you have to do that at least once as well.

I've done the Ladybug Land from Insect Lore which was a WONDERFUL experience. My daughter (now 10) still loves ladybugs and really benefited from seeing their entire life cycle.

We received an ant farm for DS when he was 4-1/2 and have purchased them as gifts since. Our instructions said you could collect your own ants outside (I assume you just find an anthill and get some ants). DS really enjoyed it for a while. The ants are supposed to live 4-5 months. Ours made it about 4 months, but the whole thing got mold - gross. However by that point DS had mostly lost interest (since there was only 1 ant left). I think it was a good gift and way better than all the commercial/movie related/gender stereotyped stuff we have received.