A collection of ladybug themed crafts, activities, and books for your child to explore inspired by the book The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.
Has your child seen a ladybug?
Here’s a playful way to engage with ladybugs and ladybug themed books for your child.
Plus some fun The Grouchy Ladybug printables to sneak a little learning into your ladybug fun.
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The Grouchy Ladybug Activities for Preschool
Ladybug Craft for Retelling Story
The story we’re reading is The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle.
I’m sharing with you 4 Ladybug Themed Activities that work well for siblings to do together!
We’ll create a Ladybug Puppet for Retelling the Story, a Ladybug Clock, a Ladybug Story, and Ladybug Animals Cards Game for Retelling!
Let’s get started!
Supplies Needed
- Black Paper (spots & legs & head)
- White paper
- Paper Plate or Round White Paper (body)
- Red Paint
- Paint Brush
- googly eyes {optional}
- Glue
- scissors
Directions for LadyBug Craft
Have your child paint the Paper Plate Red.
While the glue is drying create the black spots to glue onto the ladybug. For older children have them cut out their own circles.
Also, cut 6 legs to glue onto the body.
Then cut out an oval for the ladybug’s head.
Use googly eyes or create your own eyes using white paper and black paper. Don’t forget to add your antennae!
The more original the better for each child!
You can attach it to a stick or place a paper across the bag so your child can hold it easier to create a puppet.
Now you’ve created your very own Ladybug Puppet to Retell the story!
Have a little extra paint red paint?
The Grouchy Ladybug Clock Craft
We cut out ladybug bodies to create our own Ladybug Clocks to go along with the story too!
I loved that both of these activities kept my 2 year old and my almost 7 year old interested and having fun together.
Supplies Needed
- White paper or paper plate
- black paper
- glue
- scissors
- Clock Numbers {Printable here}
Directions
Paint the paper red and then cut out the circle for the clock.
Then create while paint is drying create the black spots and head with black paper. You can also print off your clock numbers and cut then out together.
For my youngest, age 2, I helped with the glue but we counted the numbers together. For my oldest, age 6, she created hers all on her own and then reused the clock to retell the story. We just made the clock arms out of black paper too and moved around.
If you have brads, that will work great to attach but honestly, it’s not necessary.
The Grouchy Ladybug Printables
Ladybug Activities with Printables inspired by The Grouchy Ladybug
Story cards and Words
Here’s a printable of the Images of all the animals the ladybug encounters and all of the printable words.
I love the language building with the animals in this story, ones that you don’t always see in books. Makes for a fun science discussion too with each animals and it’s characteristics.
{Click HERE to Print Words & Cards}
Lady Bug Storytime
As we read the story you figure out very quickly that he is a very grouchy ladybug with all of the aggressive animals that he interacts with. It’s a great book to talk about feelings. It’s also a good book to talk about sharing.
We practiced retelling the story using different emotions using our emotion cards. {Click HERE to Print}
- What would a happy Ladybug say?
- What would an excited Ladybug say?
- What would a shy ladybug say?
It’s so much fun to see your child’s personality come through as they retell the story. Once they’ve picked their favorite emotion have then write a story about it.
Here’ s a printable story page.
There’s a blank version for words for younger children and a lined version for older children. Even at 2 1/2 year old my littlest can attempt to tell me her story and I write it down with her by dictation.
{Click HERE To Print your Story Paper}
Lady Bug Books for Preschool
Do you have a favorite ladybug book to go along with this collection? Share with us in the comments below!
Additional Ladybug Activities for Preschoolers
