Eric Carle Creations: Part Three

The Grouchy Ladybug

After letting our butterflies go, we moved on to a new Eric Carle story: The Grouchy Ladybug.  This little story is a great way to reinforce and master the skill of telling time and to introduce the concept of compound words.  It is also just plain fun to learn about these cute little critters!

We created a lapbook to add the BIG lapbook we are compiling for the whole insect unit.  This one contained all sorts of fun information about ladybugs:  their life cycle, their favorite food, their body parts and a mini book about what insects. 

We learned all sorts of interesting facts for the paragraph that we wrote at the end of the week, too.  (Did you know that a ladybug is "born" with no spots?)

Aside from all that, we spent quite a bit of time learning compound words.  The munchkins had so much fun making their own, even if especially if they were nonsense! 

We played several center games that reinforced this concept.

And we made our own little insect book based on compound words.  It's amazing how many insect names are compound words!

Like...

grasshopper

butterfly

dragonfly

firefly

ladybug

The munchkins had fun reading this one when it was complete...especially reading the pages mixed together to create their one compound word insect names (like butterbug, firehopper, and ladyfly).

The munchkins were quick to pick up on the pattern and sequence that Eric Carle used for the story of The Grouchy Ladybug, so it was fun to use this pattern as a reinforcement of our telling time skills.  Although this story only focused on time to the hour, I have to say, my munchkins are exceptional time tellers.  Many can tell time to the five minute increments, as well as work on elapsed time!  Wow!

We had some fun ladybug clocks to play with...

and we made one to take home, too.

Besides all that, the munchkins had fun making C-V-C words with the ladybug pieces.  Those had to be REAL words!

But what was Wednesday's specialty this week?

It was a ladybug, of course...

Yummy and almost healthy, too!

Until next time...

Giggles,

Mrs. D.