Peering through a thematic science lens--elementary students embarked on a one-week study of ants during a month-long summer school program. This integrated unit addressed reading and writing skills while developing the science-process skills of observation, inferring, and communicating in a motivating and authentic way. Pre- and post-assessments of thematic vocabulary demonstrated that all of the participating students mastered 75-100% of their new vocabulary words, while writing samples revealed more descriptive writing and an increase in the use of multisyllabic words. (Contains 9 resources and 3 online resources.)