Virtual Book Club for Kids-- What the Ladybug Heard

Congratulations to Trisha over at Inspiration Laboratories for winning The Gruffalo books by this month's author, Julia Donaldson! Over the last two weeks we have shared activities to go with Julia Donaldson's books: Room on the Broom and The Snail and the Whale. This week we are going to share What the Ladybug Heard. Now this book is written in rhyme like so many of Julia Donaldson's books. And of course we love it, but I will admit we are drawn to ladybugs right now since that is Hazel's symbol at school.

This story goes through the animals on a farm.

The ladybug did not say a word, but she saw and heard. She heard two crooks plan to steal the prize cow. She talks to tell the other animals about it and her plan to stop them.

The ladybug's plan involved tricking the crooks into where they were on the farm by having other animals make different sounds. The duck mooed so they ended up in the pond. We gathered the animals so she could act out the story. I also made a sort of match game. You can match the animals or the animals sounds or you can use them to sequence the story.

Source: Everything Ladybug!

 Since the hero of this story is the ladybug, we looked a bit up about ladybugs. To start we found the life cycle of the ladybug at Everything Ladybug! We also discovered why farmers like ladybugs. They eat the aphids which eat and damage crops. The ladybugs coloring is meant to be unattractive to its predators. They can secrete a foul tasting fluid from their legs. (Source)

We also did some ladybug crafts. We made some using construction paper, glue, a brad, googly eyes and a piece of pipe cleaner. Hazel likes these since the wings move. We were inspired by For the Children.

We did a similar one with paper plates as well. We painted one red and one black and used a brad again. We were inspired by Learning Ideas - Grades K - 8.

Then we made egg carton ladybugs which were inspired by Crafts by Amanda and by Scribbled.com.

I have pinned some other ideas for ladybug crafts including a cute snack. If you are interested in seeing more of them, check out my Bugs Board.It includes a song for this book, dominoes from the publisher, and more!

Now it is your turn to share an activity for a Julia Donaldson book! Just link up to this blog hop. Also since April has begun, I will let you know the next author is David Shannon! Join us on the 15th for his books!