When we last went to the beach the girls collected a whole load of these shells. To me they look just like lady birds and I thought it would be a fun activity to paint them lady bird colours and use them for some fun learning activities.

Painting shells is a perfect outdoor activity and they dry so quickly in the sun.

We stuck some googly eyes on them and decorated them with black permanent markers. These above are Molly’s little fellas. They turned out so cute. She loved playing with them and making a little lady bug school.

The girls loved playing with them so much I thought it would be a good opportunity to do a bit of sneaky learning. I put the twins’ names on some of the ladybugs so they could sort them and learn to recognise the letters.


I wrote the letters on a piece of green card shaped like a leaf so they could match the ladybug letters.


The twins really enjoyed the activity and didn’t see it as learning at all. It was also good to be outside and gave them five minutes of sitting in the shade to cool down.

I aslo made some ladybugs up like dominoes for some maths activities and number recognition. They would be good for doubling practice. We haven’t had chance to use them yet.

Once the twins get better at recognising their name they will be able to have a try without the letters already written on the leaf.
