This Week’s Theme: Ladybugs!
Woo Hoo! We survived state testing. One week of testing with our 1st/2nd graders and one week with our 3rd-5th graders was enough to just about do me in. But, we survived and now we’re on the downhill slide to summer. Our last day of school is one month from Tuesday. There’s still a lot to be done between now and then, and that includes therapy. I’m looking forward to that bit of normalcy again.
Our theme for this week is ladybugs. I chose ladybugs in part because the majority of my students are in kindergarten and they have just started their Common Core unit on Wonders of Nature: Plants, Bugs and Frogs. Here’s the lesson plan that I submitted:
I decided to use The Grouchy Ladybug as my book of the week. I have always loved Eric Carlebooks and they are so adaptable to therapy.
Before we start, I’ll go through all of the pictures that I printed of the bugs/animals in the book and we’ll talk about them by describing and using the EET strategies. I’ll distribute them evenly to the kids in the therapy group. As we read the book, we’ll clip the pictures of the animals to a long strip of paper. This keeps everyone (even those with limited attention) engaged in the book because they are waiting for their turn to clip a picture. There’s some great animal vocabulary in this book: yellow jacket, gorilla, hyena, lobster, etc – not just your typical animal names.
Notice a pattern? I’m interested to see which child in each group notices first that the animals get larger as we go. I’m even more interested to see if they will make the connection that the text gets larger too. We’ll use this to address comparative adjectives!
One of the cool things about this book is that the ladybug talks to a different animal each hour. After we read the story, we’ll practice sequencing by gluing pictures of each animal onto a clock face. After they are all glued on, the kids can retell the story with this visual. My hope is that they will use it to retell the story to their teachers or parents.
I’m excited about using the Let’s Predict and What’s Being Said apps from Super Duper. I’ll be reviewing them on this site after the kids 
use them this week. In addition to the built-in data tracker on the apps, I created this simple reinforcer to make it more of a game. Each craft stick has one of 5 different ladybug pictures on it along with a number. The kids will take their turn on the app and then pull a stick to find out how many “points” they get for their answer. Whatever it takes to engage them, right?
I’m not a big believer in luck, but lots of people think ladybugs are lucky. If they are right, we’ll certainly be lucky after this week’s therapy!
A few ladybug facts…
- There are nearly 5,000 different kinds of ladybugs worldwide and 400 which live in North America.
- A female ladybug will lay more than 1000 eggs in her lifetime.
- A ladybug beats its wings 85 times a second when it flies.
- Aphids are a ladybug’s favorite food.
- Ladybugs chew from side to side and not up and down like people do.
- A gallon jar will hold from 72,000 to 80,000 ladybugs.
- Ladybugs make a chemical that smells and tastes terrible so that birds and other predators won’t eat them.
- If you squeeze a ladybug it will bite you, but the bite won’t hurt.
- The spots on a ladybug fade as the ladybug gets older.
- During hibernation, ladybugs feed on their stored fat.
- Ladybugs won’t fly if the temperature is below 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
- The ladybug is the official state insect of Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Tennessee.
- The male ladybug is usually smaller than the female.
- The Asian Lady Beetle can live up to 2-3 years if the conditions are right.
source: http://www.squidoo.com/ladybug-theme-birthday-party-ideas
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