We are studying insects lifecycles this week and we finished Ladybug Life Cycles. It was a lot of fun to paint some giant ladybugs and write a few facts about them.
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| Ladybug Paintings and Informational Writing by Kindergarteners in my class. Good job guys! |
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| Ladybug Painting and informational Writing. |
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| We made life cycles and labeled them too. |
I read the kids some non-fiction books about ladybugs and they loved hearing about how they hatch and eat their own eggshells! And they look like little spiders when they first hatch from eggs! They are called “Larva”. They eat like little pigs for weeks!
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| We wrote facts about Ladybugs. |
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| We put on 2 curly antennae on top of each ladybug head. Then added wiggly eyes and a smile in white crayon. |
Then they turn into pupa and make a little cacoon and stay inside of it until they have morphed into the flying insects they become as adults.
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| The Ladybug Art and Writing made a cool bulletin board out in the halls. This is our final bulletin board of the year. I love doing art with kids! |
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| A Science Spin we read from Weekly REader (All About Ladybugs). I save the good ones. |
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| Lots of good facts here! Great handwriting too! |
Here are our cool “Informational Writings”. These are KINDERGARTENERS too! Didn’t they do a fantastic job? I gave them white paper and they painted their “oval” in red, orange or yellow. Then we glued on a head, 6 legs (1 x 4 inches) and 2 wiggly eyes. They drew on smiles with white crayon. Then they glued on black circles I had some mom helpers cut in different sizes. Next year I’ll add a black line down the back of the painted ladybug before adding the “spots”. It would have looked better. Live and learn!
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| Did you know ladybugs were cool AND cute? WE did. |
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| Books we will read for insect week this week. |
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| We brainstormed a list of facts about ladybugs, and some describing words on a giant piece of red butcher paper shaped like a ladybug. That is a great way to instill some background knowledge or schema before writing projects. |
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| Ladybug painting by Mrs. Moss’ class of kindergarteners. |
For more activities I did when I had 2nd graders check out a previous post I did HERE or another one HERE.
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| Here is our cute little ladybug art. We also did a life cycle, but I forgot to snap a picture. Here is what we did last year |
A fun printable that I laminated for a center is HERE at a Kids Heart. Then I bought some dry black beans in a bag and the kids pick up a handful and drop them on the board. They add the two sides of beans together and write an equation. It’s a lot of fun at center time. I just printed them without spots.
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| Grant did an excellent job on his writing. He is a very good writer! |
Writing is SO important. It is reciprocal for learning to spell, phonics and sounding out, handwriting, and reading. It helps improve all 4 areas of Language Arts. That is why I do it every single day. Kids in my class are real good spellers and I believe this is why. (I also do sound spelling on white boards “word families” every single day. It helps with all of the above also.
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| A fun Insect Center. |
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| I’ve also done the caterpillar larva and praying mantis larva during this insect unit. Once I bought live ladybugs and we kept them in the butterfly house for a day and then went out and let them go. You can get them for about 5 bucks for a ton of them at Home Depot in the spring and early summer. You can also buy the larva HERE at Insect Lore for about $15 bucks. |
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| I had these insects out at a center too. Most of the kids can tell you insects have 3 body parts and 6 legs. |
We made little ladybug puppets with this song on the back too. It was fun to sing to the tune of “If You’re Happy and you Know It!”
OH I WISH I WERE A LITTLE LADY BUG (2 TIMES)
I’D BE SHINY RED AND BLACK
I’D EAT APHIDS FOR MY SNACK
OH I WISH I WERE A LITTLE LADYBUG!
