The Imagination Tree

Creative play and learning for kids

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

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I love all books by the author/ illustrator Eric Carle and remember them fondly from my own childhood. Cakie loves The Very Hungry Caterpillar and is slightly over-obesessed with the pages displaying the vast array of food he ate! When I read it to her she makes her own sound-track of little “oooos” and “yums” as we progress through each day until we reach the bumper crop that Saturday has to offer. And that promotes a “wow!” pretty much every time!

So I decided that we will work on a display together of the caterpillar and his mountain of fabulous food so that she can look at it and talk about it to her hearts content. And for no other purpose really than to make her happy and prompt lots more talking! We started with the caterpillar and will begin the food later in the week.

I drew around a glass onto two shades of green card and cut out a range of circles.

I encouraged C to colour them in using all of the green pens and crayons that we have and she made lots of marks on them.

Then (together!) we added gloopy glue and overlapped each circle to stick them together. While it was still wet it was possible to move them around to make him more “wiggly” like in the book.

Then we added a face and eyes, which she drew on, and some antennae and stuck it on the wall!

Next step: making the fruit from the days of the week. We will have a go at doing these in different ways eg printing, painting, collage, crayons etc. I will add the days of the week next to the each one.

I will put up the results when they are done!

Comments

  1. Anonymous says

    I think this blog is brilliant! Thanks for taking the time to put up all these good ideas. I’m often wondering what to do with J so will be using your tips 🙂

  6. Dorie says

    Great idea. I really like how your child’s coloring on each circle made a similar appearance to the original caterpillar. (I’m visiting from Homeschool Creations link-up.)