Spring is in the air and it’s my favorite time of year to get to study insects and plants and flowers! There so many fun things to learn about this time of year. Right now, we’re focusing on ladybugs, get all of the details of what we do for our unit here. So we are sticking with ladybugs this week, and we are reading, The Grouchy Ladybug, by Eric Carle for this week’s literacy snack.

As children follow the Grouchy Ladybug on her journey, they will learn the important concepts of time, size, and shape, as well as the benefits of friendship and good manners.

This is a story of a bad-tempered bug who won’t say “please” or “thank you,” won’t share, and thinks she is bigger and better than anyone else. This book will help your little learners learn that maybe being grouchy isn’t always the best option.

For this week’s snack to go along with the book, we are making our very own ladybugs.

Ingredients

each student will need

1 strawberry cut in half

a small number of chocolate chips, approx 12

4 candy eyeballs

A small amount of cream cheese to use as glue for the eyes

Assemble

The student will each have a half on strawberry. They can take a few chocolate chips and push them carefully into the strawberry pointy side into the strawberry. Last, have them put a tiny bit of cream cheese onto each eyeball to use as a glue to attach the eyeballs onto the strawberry.

While the students are enjoying their ladybug snack, I creat4ed a free printable for them to work on to go along with the story. They get to draw a picture and write about what makes them grouchy.

You can download the free printable from my TeachersPayTeachers store below.

If you’re working on ladybugs in your classroom, we have some other fun ideas for you to go along with your unit and this book. Making these insect lifecycle hats is one of the kids favorite activities to do! You can never go wrong with making hats!