Ladybugs in Kindergarten

Some projects are just so good you have to repeat them...

One of the first projects I ever taught (like STUDENT TEACHING first taught) was this kindergarten ladybug project...my cooperating teacher showed it to me.... It is perfect for spring time and had I done it sooner, would of made one of the cutest displays EVER.

The main objective was to learn about different perspectives and continuing talking about overlapping. 

Day 1: Started with probably one of my favorite Eric Carle books of all time. The Grouchy Ladybug. If you have not read it. You do not know what you are missing.

Most Kindergarteners have read this book so reading it to them was hilarious because they would say the "Hey you, wanna fight?" lines for me. ADORBS. So we read the book and talked about how big ladybugs are and how big the world must look to them. Then the fun began! I told them they would not be using scissors until the very end of the project for the ladybugs. We talked about how they had to tear paper to get the grass and that some paper only likes being torn horizontally and some vertically. We also reviewed overlapping and looked at how many layers of grass I had for my ladybugs. Then the tearing was underway! Watching kindergarteners tear paper with meaning and seeing their faces light up is probably my favorite thing about this project, because honestly, I am generally scared of ladybugs and they freak me out.

Once most of the class started gluing I played these really silly YouTube kid song videos about ladybugs and then the songs were stuck in my head for the rest of the year.

                                       

                                       

You're welcome.

Day 2: Started off with one of the ladybug songs again and some clips of ladybugs close up from this video...skipped the whole mating ladybugs part....

                                       

We had some reminders about how big the ladybugs are compared to the grass and I did a demo drawing and showed how to cut the wings to look like they were flying. I had more than enough torn green paper, so if they needed to add more grass they used the community pile. When they were ready to start ladybugs we had pre-cut red squares to use. Sharpie was used to draw them and hiding some ladybugs in the grass was encouraged. Which meant some kiddos had all of theirs hidden...and I thought they didn't do any! :)

All of them finished in 2 days with a little help from others cutting. REALLY wish I could have done a display with these! Only photographed a few but it is a great taste of the project!