The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and published by Puffin is a fantastic little picture book about a little caterpillar who eats lots of food, builds a cocoon and then turns in to a beautiful butterfly. It is my son's favourite book at the minute and we read it multiple times a day. The book has lots of bright pictures, short simple sentences and contains different foods and colours to look at. As the caterpillar begins to eat through the foods there are holes on the pages to see where he has been and the pages are short and get longer as the caterpillar eats more.
Activities
Fruit salad
Colour and texture discussion
Food guessing game
Make The Hungry Caterpillar out of fruit
Cupcake caterpillar
Props for the book
Paperchain Hungry Caterpillar
Postbox activity
Make a beautiful butterfly
Chalk number caterpillar and number games
Leaf collecting
Leaf discussion
Plant fruits in the garden
Fruit picking
Cooking/Food
As the book is based around food I have decided to start with the food related activities first. You could get the different foods tasted on Monday to Friday and make a fruit salad. Your child/children could help with the peeling, cutting and putting the fruits in the bowls. As you are doing this you could talk about the different colours and textures of the different fruits. You could also do a guessing game and see if your child could remember how many of each fruit the hungry caterpillar ate and which fruit he ate on which day. You could make a hungry caterpillar by using green grapes for the body and a strawberry or red apple for the head. Cut the grapes in half length ways (you should always try and do this as they can be a choking hazard) and then use these to make the body and then use half a red apple or half a strawberry to make the head. You could make the eyes out of chocolate drops or raisins. You could also make the caterpillar out of cupcakes. Decorate them so there are lots of green ones and then do a red one for the head. If you have any cupcakes left you could draw some of the different foods on them using icing.
Indoor
You could make the hungry caterpillar and the different foods mentioned out of card and then as you read the story your child/children could hold them up. To make it easier for them to hold you could attach lollypop sticks to them and you could wrap them in sticky tape to stop them ripping. You could draw the outline and your child/children could colour them in or they could draw the different pictures themselves. You could make a hungry caterpillar out of a paper chain using lots of green card for the body and some red card for the head. Then you can put some eyes, a nose and a mouth on. You could do a posting activity with your child/children. If you make one of each foods mentioned and then a number 2, 3 4 and 5 and then 12 number 1s then your child/children can post the food and then the correct number that the caterpillar ate. You could make a postbox out of an old box and you could make your post box look like a regular post box and then put something caterpillar related on it or you could make it so the posting hole looks like the caterpillar's mouth depending how creative you are. You could always get your child/children to decorate the post box while you make some of the other things. The caterpillar turns into a butterfly at the end of the book so you could make a butterfly with your child/children. If you can get hold of some black paper, cut it into a butterfly shape and then fold it in half. You can then cut some shapes out of it (like how you make a snowflake) and when you open it out it will be symmetrical. Then get your child/children to stick some coloured paper on the back of the butterfly and then this will make the wings colourful. You could always attach some string and dangle your butterfly to make it look like it is flying. When I was at school we used to make these and put the see through sweet wrappers at the back but they aren't as easy to get hold of now because the companies have changed the packaging.
Outdoor
If you have some chalk available then you could draw a big caterpillar on the floor and put numbers 1 - 10 on it and then your child/children could play some number games. Older children could practice their times, addition or take away and younger children could practice their number recognition and higher and lower numbers. One less or two more is also a good activity to do. Your child/children could do a leaf hunt and collect some leaves to make the caterpillar feel better. You could discuss the shape, colour and size of the leaves and then talk about the different trees that the leaves came from. You could plant some different seeds of foods that the caterpillar ate such as an apple tree, pear tree or strawberries in the garden and get your child/children involved in the digging, planting and watering. They will have fun picking and eating the different fruits when they are ready. If you haven't got a garden or are unable to do this then you could take your child/children fruit picking. There are lots of different farms that offer this now and this should be a fun day out.
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