How to Make the Most of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a great book. It also happens to be my two year old's current favourite. One of the really fantastic things about it is that it lends itself to all sorts of investigations, experiments and learning opportunites. So this weeks 'How to. . .' list is a compilation of fun activities you can do with your pre-schooler that are based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.


CRAFT
There are some great craft activities you can enjoy with your pre-schooler.

Painting or colouring butterflies and caterpillars

Make a butterfly mask

Make an egg carton caterpillar.
You will need: paint, paint brushes, glue, construction paper, pipe cleaners, cotton balls, and egg cartons (oddly enough!)

Cut the egg cartons into sections of three. Then, glue the egg carton to a sheet of construction paper and paint the egg carton. Allow the carton to dry. Next, glue some cotton balls to the top of the carton. Place two pipe cleaners into the front of the egg carton. Draw on eyes and a face. Of course you can decorate it with other things - glitter, sequins, buttons . . . whatever takes the fancy of your pre-schooler!

MUSIC & MOVEMENT
You could find some appropriate music and dance around like a butterfly or a caterpillar

Click here for a great site with songs and poems about caterpillars and butterflys.

SCIENCE
If its the right time of year and you have a vegetable garden, it could be a great time to pop out and have a look at the white butterflies hovering around your cabbages and cauliflowers and their offspring eating them!

Or you could grow some Swan Plants and observe the life-cycle of the Monarch Butterfly.

You could do some blind taste tests of some of the foods the caterpillar ate. Your pre-schooler can try and guess what each thing is. Talk about texture, smell and taste.

Get some picture books from the library about the life cycle of butterflies.

MATHS
Cut out 11 circles from different coloured paper. Decorate one to be the Caterpillars face, write the numbers 1 - 10 on the other circles and work with your pre-schooler to put the caterpillar together with the numbers in the right order. Or alternatively you could draw 1 -10 spots on each circle instead of writing the numbers.

Make caterpillars of varying sizes and talk with your pre-schooler about bigger and smaller, putting the caterpillars in order of smallest to biggest or vice versa.

VOCABULARY
Talk about the days of the week with your child

Make cards of the different letters the foods start with and talk with your pre-schooler about the sounds and which food starts with which sound.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Feel free to add any other ideas you might have in a comment attached to this post!

Have fun!!

For more ideas and for activities for older kids head on over to:
* http://www.teachingheart.net/veryhungrycaterpillar.html
*http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/pages/452.shtml