The Grouchy Ladybug Helps Us With Time

One of my favorite Eric Carle books is The Grouchy Ladybug. The students have heard this story several times in the last few weeks and now can retell it with confidence and intonation. This story is classic Eric Carle in that he not only teaches life skills such as manners and sharing but also teaches children about the passage of time. As each hour of the ladybug's journey from insect to animal passes, a clock is in the upper right hand corner of the page shows the time. This gives children a visual image of what the time looks like on an analog clock. This is something that we don't think a lot about, but many clocks in children's homes are digital. Cell phones have digital time and so do computers (at the bottom right hand corner of the screen.) Telling time is fun for a child and once they have mastered the "o'clock", it's off to "__:30" and so on. During this retelling, children had the chance to move the hands of their own Grouchy Ladybug clock that they made earlier: http://www.vickiblackwell.com/lit/ladybug.html This added an interactive element to the story and made it a lot of fun to hear again. Now, when they take their clocks home, they can discuss the story and tell time too!!