Learn Spanish with Ladybugs // Make a Ladybug!

by | Aug 21, 2013 | Uncategorized

This summer we followed along with the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp hosted by Toddler Approved, Rainy Day Mum, and The Educators’ Spin On It.  We did not blog about it, but we had a lot of fun following the calendar of books and activities put together by these awesome bloggers!  Of course we extended lots of activities into Spanish learning, and this post kicks off a series on how we have been learning Spanish with ladybugs!

You will find in this series:

1.  Make a Ladybug // Hagan una mariquita
2.  Learn Prepositions with Ladybugs
3.  Ladybugs and Their Spots
4.  Ladybugs and Colors
5.  Help the Little Ladybug–Practicing Numbers and Colors
6.  Learn Spanish Through Literature: La mariquita Lara
7.  Ladybug Facts

Make a Ladybug // Hagan una mariquita
One of the books we read along with VBC Summer Camp was “The Grouchy Ladybug” by Eric Carle.  We made the ladybug craft suggested by The Educators’ Spin On It which you can find here.  We did ours a little differently, making the legs with pipe cleaners (which I stapled instead of glued), and gluing the eyes right on the paper plate instead of making a head.  I think the ladybug from The Educators’ Spin On It is much cuter, but ours was a little quicker to assemble and needed no time for drying.  And with my boys, fast is usually preferred!

As you are making your ladybug with your kiddos, try using craft words in Spanish too!  Spanish Playground has a great post here introducing craft-centered Spanish vocabulary.  Also, try using these Spanish phrases to talk about the ladybugs spots, legs and color.

Yes…there are toys all over the floor behind my cute helper–because that’s our life!

Count the legs as you gather them, and as you staple (or glue) them on: “Uno….dos…tres…”

Spanish
Pronunciation
English
¿Cuántas?
KWAN-tahs
How many
manchas
MAHN-chahs
spots
tiene
tee-EH-nay
he/she/it has
la
lah
the
mariquita
mah-ree-KEE-tah
ladybug
uno
OO-noh
one
dos
dohs
two
tres
trehs
three
cuatro
KWAH-troh
four
cinco
SEEN-koh
five
seis
SAYees
six
siete
see-EH-tay
seven
ocho
OH-choh
eight
nueve
noo-EH-bay
nine
diez
dee-EHS
ten

Count out the spots as you hand them to your child, and count them as you glue them on.  If your ladybug has more than ten spots, go here to watch a video on numbers past ten in Spanish.

Spanish
Pronunciation
English
¿Qué
kay
What?
color
koh-LOHR
color
es
ehs
is it/is he/is she
es
ehs
it is/he is/she is
la
lah
the
mariquita
mah-ree-KEE-tah
ladybug
rojo
ROH-hoh
red
If you choose to paint your ladybug a different color, you can watch this video for how to say your colors in Spanish.

Feliz ladybugging!

Kali Carollo

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