Salt Dough Decorations
Here’s a crafty activity that’s perfect for cosy days at home. Make your own Christmas […]
Read moreOutdoor family fun: Spot the ladybirds
What you need
- Cut outs of lady birds, from books or printed pictures from the internet
- Numbers, written/printed on to scraps of paper
Benefits
- Number recognition
- Recognising mini beasts
- Having fun outside
The experience
Firstly, hide the cut-out ladybirds around your garden or an area at the park. It’s fun to look under trees, leaves and plants to find the ladybirds, but of course, they could hide indoors too!
Give your child a number and ask them to see if they can find the ladybirds with the matching spots, e.g. they have the number 3 and have to find one with three spots. It may be helpful, depending on your child’s abilities, to write the number using both the numeral and the number of dots on a piece of paper they can then use to match the two together.
For younger children, it could be fun to just look for the hidden ladybirds, and there is still a great opportunity to get some counting in when they have found them all and can discover with you how many they have collected.
You can talk to them about where ladybirds live just so they have a little hint of where to look for them. Perhaps do some research into ladybirds – what do they eat, where do they live, etc. You could look out for real ladybirds on a walk outdoors – can you count the number of spots?