The Grouchy Ladybug

We made ladybugs as part of our New York project because the ladybug is the state bug of New York. Since we had the ladybugs, we decided to use them to tell the story of The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. I know a lot of people do not like this book because the grouchy ladybug is not very nice and asks all of the animals if they want to fight, but we talk about the ladybug's behavior and try to learn from the book. The grouchy ladybug does not have good manners through most of the book and we talk about how he should behave and how the other animals might feel when he asks them to fight. We also talk about how the grouchy ladybug feels at the end of the book, and how nice the friendly ladybug is at the beginning and end. This book is also a great introduction to telling time.

C wanted to use blocks to make the other animals from the book. I loved his creativity. Here he has made a rhinoceros.
This is his elephant.
I was going to print pictures of all of the animals the grouchy ladybug encounters in the book, but I am so happy that I didn't. C had a great opportunity to use his imagination with the blocks and he loved every minute.

Don't give up on this book; use it to teach a valuable lesson!