Grouchy Grouchy Grouchy

The Grouchy Ladybug is my youngest child's FAVORITE book!  He just sits and cackles every time I read the ladybug's lines with a "grouchy" voice.  Needless to say, our book is very "well loved" with a missing cover and wrinkled pages.  So when I decided that we just HAD to use this book during our time unit, I had to borrow a copy (not that my two year old would let me borrow his long enough to read to my class anyway, haha).

This is now one of my favorite lessons for teaching time.  I love being able to integrate reading into my math, science, and social studies lessons.  Reading is truly where my heart lies, so the more I can get it in, the happier I am! Plus, I love how Eric Carle always pulls in other concepts to make it that much easier.

So the first thing we did was read the story, purely for enjoyment.  That is a must!  Then we created our own ladybugs.  We put these together with a brad so that the wings would fan out when the ladybug flies through the story.  After our ladybug was put together, we put a clock on his back (under the wings).

 

Then we added small clocks to the ladybug's wings as his spots.  And of course we had to top them off with googly eyes! =)

So our craft was all put together and time for some actual learning!  We read the story together one more time.  Each time that the story mentioned a time, the students had to use their ladybug clock to make the time.  Then they had to draw the hands on the small "clock spots" to match the time.  By the end of the story, all of our "clock spots" were showing times from the story.
 

 

Here are some fun pictures of our final products!