by Johanna Richardson

Created on: November 14, 2009   Last Updated: November 15, 2009

There are many ladybird themed ideas for craft for children to do, here are a few.

1. Ladybird rock bugs.

You will need:

Pick some nice small flat stones, and wash them well.

Buy some wobbly eyes and pipe cleaners.

Non-toxic red paint for the body (enamel paints or acrylic paints are good for this, you can buy small pots from craft shops) and some black felt tip pens to draw on the spots and face.

To make:

Depending on the child's age you or the child can paint the bodies red, let them dry.

The child can then colour in the spots and the face of the ladybird.

Cut two small pieces of pipe cleaners and stick them on as antennas with either sellotaped or glue and stick on the wobbly eyes.

2. Ladybirds with movable wings.

You will need:

Stiff card in black and red, pipe cleaners and two paper fasteners.

Coloured paper pieces for the eyes, mouth, and black felt tip pen

To make:

Cut out a ladybird shape from the black card, you can use this template if you want. Cut two small circles out for the head in black card.

Cut out a red circle the same size as your ladybird's body and cut in half (these are your wings.)

Place the wings on top of the body and poke holes through the wings and through the body, then placing one of the headpieces underneath carry on with the holes and push your paper fasteners through the holes from the wings, ending underneath the face.

Flatten the paper fasteners and stick on another piece of head shape (this to stop your child being hurt with the ends of the paper fastener.

Black spots can be drawn on the wings and the eyes, antennas and mouth stuck to the head.

The wings will then move outwards our inwards.

3. Ladybird dominoes.

You will need:

You will need some red stiff card and black felt tip pen.

To Make:

Cut out some ladybird shapes.

Then with the black felt tip pen, draw in the face, a line down the centre of the body to represent wings.

Then on either side of the wings draw a number of spots like you find on dominoes, so on one ladybird it could have one spot on one wing and two spots on the other wing.

4. Memory games.

To make:

Make the ladybirds as above, but put so many spots on each one (make two ladybirds that look the same)

It can then be used as a matching game or a memory game.

In the memory game you line up so many ladybirds in rows, let the child study them for a while, then turn them all over in the same position.

You or another child then take it in turns to turn two ladybirds over, if you make a pair, you keep them, carry on until all the pairs have been made, the one with the most pairs is the winner.

5. Wooden ladybird

You will need:

4 lollypop sticks in a large size

2 lollypop sticks in a smaller size

Black pipe cleaner

2 wobbly eyes

Glue and sellotaped

Black and red paint or felt tips

To Make:

Paint or felt-tip 2 larger and 1 smaller stick in red and the rest in black.

Place the sticks as follows

1 small red (centred)

Lay 1 large red against this small one

Lay another large red one against the one above

Lay 1 large black one against the one above

Lay 1 small black against the one above (centred)

Sellotape them together as they lie flat.

Carefully turn them over and glue the last black stick across all the sticks in the centre, this will hold them together and make the wings show.

Stick your wobbly eyes onto the small black stick either side of the middle stick (which you stuck down the back of your ladybird)

Sellotape the pipe cleaner on for antennas.

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