What’s cute, red, has black spots and can fly? Ladybugs of course! Ladybugs are just so cute- and their fun black spots make it SO easy to come up with learning activities centered around them- especially art and counting! Since spring is in the air, I thought it would be a great time to do a week of art, learning and sensory play based around these little insects. There are only 6 activities this week due to a few of the ones I had planned being a bit tricky for a toddler to execute- I didn’t realize it until trying to do them with my little, so I moved them over to the preschool ladybug post instead. If you have an older toddler (2+) you could also order a ladybug raising kit from Amazon and watch them transform from larvae to adults which is super cool! Anyway! Without further adieu- here’s toddler ladybug week!
–Ladybug garden sensory bin: I set up a ladybug garden sensory bin for my littles to scoop and play in with dried beans, ladybug lifecycle figures, and flowers. You can even “plant” the flowers in the beans, which is fun!
–Ladybug rock painting: First we went outside and I had my littles find some smooth, rounded rocks. Then they painted them red. When they were dry, I decorated my toddler’s rock to look like a ladybug using a black sharpie (my preschooler did his himself) and I decoupaged them so the paint would stay put. You can have your little hide the rocks in a park for someone to find- or they can keep them (or hide them in the house, which is what my littles chose to do! LoL)
–Dot a ladybug: I cut out 5 ladybugs from red construction paper, wrote the numbers 1-5 on the tops, then helped my little count out the matching amount of black dot stickers for each one.
–Paper plate ladybug craft: We read the story “Lucy Ladybug”, then made Lucy using a paper plate and the instructions from Mrs. Plemon’s Kindergarten, with a few modifications. Basically, my littles painted the puffy side of paper plates red (like it was upside down compared with how you eat on them). Then after they dried I had them stick colorful dot stickers on their plates to make Lucy’s spots (in the story she has no spots, but borrows different colored spots from all her friends who willingly share with her- so sweet, right!?) Next we fan folded strips of black paper and the littles taped them on to make legs, along with a black half circle for Lucy’s head. My littles stuck on white dot stickers I decorated with a Sharpie for eyes as the finishing touch.
–Ladybug shape match: I printed a ladybug shape matching freebie from Teachers Pay Teachers, laminated it and cut out the ladies. Then I named each shape for my little and asked him where the matching tree was- for example, “This is a triangle- can you put the triangle ladybug on the triangle tree?” We worked on one page at a time so it would be a little easier for him to find the shapes. Note: The rhombus is labeled as a diamond on this activity. I highly recommend you change it to rhombus- as I used to tell my 3rd graders: a diamond is a rock, a rhombus is a shape. If littles learn it correctly now, they won’t have to relearn it later!
–B is for bug: I printed this letter B do a dot page, added a cute ladybug at the bottom, then had my little use a dot marker to make the B.
–Supply/shopping list:
- smooth round or oval rock
- paper plate
- colorful dot stickers
- beans
- fake flowers
- ladybug figurine set
littlelovesandlearning.com 
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