The Grouchy Ladybug By: Eric Carle

Book Genre: Fiction (Children and young adult picture book)

Publishing Info: HarperCollins Publishers (48 pages)

Awards and honors received: N/A

Summary: The Grouchy Ladybug does not demonstrate good manors throughout this book. She will not say please and thank you, she won’t share aphids and she thinks she is bigger and better than everybody. She goes from animal to animal trying to pick a fight but realizes every animal she goes to is bigger than her. As the children follow the ladybug on her journey through the book they will learn the important concepts of size, shape, time and the benefits of good manors.

Personal rating and reason for rating: ****Great! I just love Eric Carle books! He is such an amazing author! I have never read this book before and recently went out to buy it for when I teach about ladybugs! I was very please that he correlated time into this book with illustrated clocks to help teach children to tell time. One of our math standards is having the students tell time to the hour which is perfect for this story. The story also teaches children about feelings and how to deal with them positively.

Reading level: 2.8 (2nd grade 8th month)

Interest level: K-5

Possible uses of the text in integrated units of study:

Math: I have a classroom set of the mini yellow analog clocks for my students to use when I teach about time. I would give each student a clock and as I read the story a second time through I would have each child correlate the time with each page.

Health: Part of our health standards are to teach children about the different feelings and emotions. I would use my Mimio (Similar to the Smart board) and show them different types of scenarios and the students would have to figure out what emotions each character in the picture is feeling and why. For example, the picture could have a couple sitting on the beach smiling with a baby near by crying.

Science: I have done this activity before after reading another ladybug story and this particular activity brings my ladybug unit to life. I would suggest competing this the first day of the unit. I went to the dollar store and bought 4-5 bug catchers. I bring my students outside in groups of 4 and they get to search through the grass looking for ladybugs. They usually find 10-30 ladybugs!! They get to bring them back to the classroom and watch them. (Many writing activities could be linked to this) We put food and water in the catcher. They usually last about 2 days before starting to die. I try and release them back before they all start dying!

Writing: I would complete the science activity from above and carry that over into my writing lesson. I would have students tell me two facts that they have learned about ladybugs. (Either from my teaching, or a United Streaming video) Students then need to come up with a detailed setting that matches their sentences.

Art: Have students paint a small red paper plate. When dry students will dip their finger into back paint and make the spots on the back with their finger. We will then glue the head and legs on using black construction paper and glue a set of wiggly eyes on.

Interactive technology: Show students different types of ladybugs using the Mimio. Most children only think there are red ladybugs. If you log into United Streaming there are also many short video segments about ladybugs that you could use to reinforce your teaching.

Potential problems or difficulties: I do not see any potential problems.