Ladybugs

In my classroom we recently received a ladybug habitat! It is fascinating and I love watching them.  Sometimes I feel that I am more interested than the children are.  The ladybug habitat is a clear dome shaped top that fits into the bottom that looks like grass and rocks.  It is plastic and the top has a magnifying glass that you can look in.   The ladybugs arrived in the larva stage in a clear tube that had food for them to eat.  I dumped the tube into the habitat and the larva fell in and started walking around.  There is a little sponge in the habitat that has to be kept moist.  The ladybugs like the humidity.  Now the ladybugs are in the pupa stage.  They attached themselves to the side of the dome and formed their pupa.  It will be long now until they emerge from the pupa as ladybugs.  After that happens, I will take the class to playground to set the ladybugs free. 

Vocabulary:

Habitat: a placed where the ladybugs can live inside

Fascinating: to be amazed; wow!

Magnifying glass: a lens that magnifies what you are looking at; makes it look bigger so you can see it easier

Larva: the stage after the egg stage, they look like bugs

Moist: to keep wet with no puddles

Pupa: the stage after the larva stage, they enclose themselves in a case until they are ready to come out as ladybugs

Emerge: to come out

Writing activity:

Investigate the life cycles of the ladybug and butterfly.  Write a short paragraph comparing the differences and similarities, the way they are the same and different of the two.

Grammar:

A verb is the word I the sentence that tells what the subject is doing.  Find 7 subject/verb pairs and circle them.