Ladybugology (Backyard Buddies)

By Michael Elsohn Ross

Book Overview

Describes the physical characteristics, habits, and life of ladybugs and provides instructions for finding, collecting, and keeping these beetles as pets. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1575054353
• ISBN13: 9781575054353
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: First Avenue Editions
• Length: 48 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.3" x 0.3" x 9.5"
• Age Range: 8 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Grades 3 to 6

Customer Reviews

Educators Take Note! - a review of "Ladybugology"

Whether you homeschool, supplement, or teach in a school, you should take a look at this book. I think it's a great resource that will get your or your children's investigative "juices" flowing. The approach of this book is very much 'how-to". The author covers the usual bug information -- life cycle, body parts, what they eat, and what eats them, etc-- but he also eggs you on, out into the field to study ladybugs in their natural environment. In addition, there are hints for how to keep ladybugs as a pet and for how long. (They need to be released, of course, so we can have more ladybugs). You are also given some ideas on how to make an exercise gym for your colony, how to race them, etc. All of these tasks/play allow children to incorporate math, writing, and arts and crafts practice with learning... making it fun. Pam T~ mom and reviewer for www.BooksForKids-Reviews

Solid Hands On Learning Tool

This is our third encounter with the Backyard Buddies series and I have to say, I'm quite pleased with what we have read thus far. Ladybugology offers both explanations and hands on activity opportunities for kids that are simple but engaging for kids ages 4-8 (should be minimally parent/teacher supervised). Ladybugology starts out with the basics of what Ladybugology is and a brief bit about where to find ladybugs -- their homes and an activity designed to give kids an up close look at where and how ladybugs live -- with leaf patrol and the Ladybug Lodge. From there it goes into several pages of activities that kids can try some are hands on, but at this point most are imagination exercises...most of the hands on and experimenting exercises come later in the book after more educational information has been given. Ladybugology encourages hands exploration, fact finding, and questioning by children well before they get into the more lengthy scientific information on spiders, which I think is good...I mean, the book DOES give out some basics before sending kids out to explore habitats and ladybugs themselves, so they aren't staring out totally without basic information. To my way of thinking, this "phase" is designed to stimulate a keen interest, encourage children to formulate questions which they will likely be able to answer either directly through the reading or as a result of "experiments" done later in the book. What I like about this series is the way the information is presented, because the children are encouraged to gather information, formulate questions and do some minor observation prior to doing the "book learning" reading in the book, they come into it with and keep sense of curiosity. In this way, with their interest already peaked (where they might not be if they were fed only dry factoids about ladybugs), I think kids would be ready and willing to dive into the leaning process. Overall, there is a lot of information in this little book (48 pages) and I really like that most of the information is packed in between hands on activities for kids to try so that the process of discovering more about ladybugs isn't just a bunch of facts in a book. The first part of the book is exploration and fact gathering (direct, hands-on), the second part of the book is facts and scientific information, and the final section is experiments and findings of the authors students have done in the past...all with illustrations and full color photos to enhance the learning experience! This is an excellent way for kids to see how experiments are done and how the results are recorded/reported. In Ladybugology, kids can see, up close and personal how ladybugs live, how they move, what their outer body structure is like, what they feel like and much more. I give it four stars, a great resource for your budding Ladybugologist! I recommend this in conjunction with two or three additional books on ladybugs since the information is interspersed, read