The Grouchy Ladybug Activities

I love the humility lesson in The Grouchy Ladybug along with the friendliness of the friendly ladybug despite the attitude of the grouchy ladybug. 

As we read through the book this week, we mimicked some of the other animals the ladybug came across. Here are the few of the actions we did:

• showed our stinger like the yellow jacket
• used our hands as horns like the stag beetle
• prayed like a praying mantis
• opened our mouths like the sparrow
• stretched our claws like the lobster
• lifted our tail like the skunk
• hissed like a snake
• laughed like a hyena
• beat our chests like a gorilla
• lowered our noses like a rhino
• raised our trunk like an elephant
• said THANK YOU! like the grouchy ladybug

Grouchy Ladybug - Friendly Ladybug - Leaf w/ Aphids Craft
I like to think that at the end of the book the Grouchy Ladybug becomes friends with the Friendly Ladybug. They also help the leaf by eating all the aphids. Saying thank you when a friend shares and thank you when someone helps us shows appreciation to our friends or acquaintances.

To show the end of the book relationship, Sweet P created 2 ladybugs and a leaf w/ aphids on it. The Grouchy Ladybug had a down-turned mouth and frowny eyebrows to show the difference between the two ladybugs.

She chose pink for the Friendly Ladybug and red for the Grouchy Ladybug. Because she wanted to paint with green and yellow, she used both on the leaf.

I set the plates outside to dry while Sweet P played for a bit. When I brought them back in she glued on eyes, mouth and eyebrows. I was going to have her poke through the plate with a pushpin to make a hole for the antennae, but the plate was wonky and she had a hard time so I did it.

Using a circle cutter with a grip, she cut out 10 black circles for ladybug spots. We used a sunburst hole punch for the aphids, but it was too hard for her to push. I even had a hard time! I punched out 10 aphids for the leaf.

To finish, Sweet P glued the spots on the ladybugs and counted the 10 aphids before gluing them to the leaf.

I set them together to take a quick photo and she rearranged them so that the ladybug mouths were touching the leaf so they could eat!

Here's what Baby Blue was up to while Sweet P glued!

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Tot Preschool: Letters L and M

Before Valentine's Day we did several activities with letter L, but we started working more with trays and other activities so I never got around to posting them. After Valentine's Day we started doing some letter M activities and got stuck on letter M for a few weeks before moving on to St. Patrick's Day activities. Here are a few of the things we did during those weeks.

Sweet P is 34.5 months

Bible Verse (letter M): Happy are the kind and merciful. -Matthew 5:7
Bible Character (letter M): Moses

Ladybug letter L: This was a lot of fun for her and a great counting activity for Sweet P as well.

Leaves in a Tree: At one of the mall play areas in town there is a tree that has two eyes peeking out, but you can't see what it is. Sweet P was obsessed with that tree for awhile so I came up with an idea for her to recreate that tree at home. I used leftover tissue paper from an advent calendar we made for the leaves.

M is for Mask: Sweet P made a mask for Mardi Gras!

Letter M collage: Sweet P's collage of M words on a giant letter M.

Mouse coloring cards from A Heart for Home: We talked a little about coloring in the lines and I showed her how to color slowly with the red mouse. She traced each mouse tail and then worked on matching the colors with her markers.

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