ladybug, ladybug

We've been blessed with such beautiful weather lately. Which translates into plenty of time spent outside. I love my backyard but sometimes you just want to go out and explore the big wide world. For us, that means we go out tramping around on "our bogs." Now, I don't know about your kids but mine (my own and my daycare kids) are unable to walk out in nature without filling their pockets, hands or buckets with rocks. We return from our ambles with enough rocks to construct a wall. Most of these we put out in a table in the backyard filled with interesting natural materials for the kids to play with. A select few are chosen to go home or get put into their collections. After one successful rock collecting trip we decided we would use paint to make some ladybugs.

You will need rocks, red and black paint, qtip and a paintbrush. The children painted their rocks completely red and we let them dry. A couple hours later they used the qtip to paint a black area for the head and then dotted it for the polka dots. A little more drying time and they were finished. You could add some wiggly eyes if you like too.



The kids made entire families of ladybugs and played with them all afternooon. Even after the daycare kids took their bugs home I still had a windowsill filled with the polka dotted beauties. You know, they say ladybugs are good luck and with this many around, I'm expecting a windfall!