I can’t believe I haven’t featured this week’s book The Very Hungry Caterpillar on Read.Explore.Learn. before. We have several copies of it in JDaniel’s room and I have read it to him a zillion times. He loves to count the fruits that the very hungry caterpillar eats as he prepares to build his cocoon.
If you aren’t familiar with the story, a little caterpillar hatches from an egg and then begins a daily inhalation of food. He starts his week of slowly and gradually eats more and more until he isn’t a little caterpillar any more. The caterpillar has digested enough to carry him through the time he is sequestered in a cocoon.
Each food he eats has a hole in the middle of it. JDaniel loves to put his finger into each hole as he counts the foods the caterpillar eats everyday. He learned to count as I read this book over and over again.
What did we do to explore this book?
Caterpillar Snack
I am not huge on snacks. JDaniel does enjoy them though. We had green grapes, tomatoes, and watermelon in the fridge. I decided to use them to construct the caterpillar from The Very Hungry Caterpillar for him. Half a grape was used for each of the caterpillar’s sections. except his head. Half a grape tomato was used for his head. The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s antennae and feet are tiny slices of watermelon.
The caterpillar’s eyes and nose also came from the fridge. I cut tiny circles out of a flour tortilla and colored them green with a food marker.
Measuring the Caterpillar
JDaniel has been very interested in measuring with a ruler lately. He wants to find the length of the tiles in the kitchen, my foot, and his shoes. Not everything he wants to measure is completely straight. I decided to show him a trick for measuring oddly shaped objects.
I made The Very Hungry Caterpillar out of construction paper. The caterpillar is simply a piece of green paper folded in half with connecting curves cut out of it. It front and back ends are reflections of each other.
Then we took yarn and organized it inside the caterpillar’s body to follow its curves. We lifted the yarn up very carefully and lined it up above a ruler. The yarn length of the caterpillar was longer than the ruler. We wrote twelve inches onto the white paper. I had JDaniel hold the remaining length of the yarn while I recorded the first length. We then measured the remaining yarn. It turned out to be eight inches. The caterpillar didn’t look twenty inches long, but that is what he turned out to be.
Sight Word Game
JDaniel has really gotten into learning to read. We have been working on six sight words a week. This week I thought we would play a game to help him review the words we have worked on. I made a The Very Hungry Caterpillar game board using a paint program.
He earned a red pom pom for the first word he recognized and a green pom pom for the remaining words he read. The goal was to review six words at time. I ended up having to print out two game boards. JDaniel remembered so many of the words and he loved earning pom poms for the caterpillar.
I especially love the activity with the pom poms. They’re a huge hit in our house but I never thought of using them as points on a caterpillar. Thanks for sharing!
Super fun and cute! My 5 y.o. loves that book! :)-Ashley
Awesome, I love all the activities 🙂 I know we have read it so many times too but I have not yet done an activity with this book 🙂 Counting, colors, days – while reading there are so many things we discuss that and after-book activity is sometimes really not needed. But now you have inspired me to try 🙂
Thanks for hosting. I look forward to doing The Very Hungry Caterpillar again… with older children. You have some great ideas!
That book is a favorite in our house too!
I loved this book when I was young– I’m hoping to have the chance to do these activities with my children one day!
For my son’s 2nd bday I did a Hungry Caterpillar theme – so so cute!
We love the Hungry Caterpillar and these activities are so cute and very doable. Thanks!
Very adorable and that’s one of my favorite books. 🙂
My son had a little hungry caterpillar toy when he was tiny. He loved it. We never read the book, I don’t know why.
Christine @ Mama Papa Barn
I used to love the hungry caterpillar as a kid – what a great thing to do to turn in to such a versatile learning tool x
Love that caterpillar snack! Yummy……
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is my boys favorite book! Such cute activities…love the snack!
These are great activities! Thanks for sharing.
This book is one of Hayley’s favorites!! We actually own two copies!!!!!Love the crafts!
Stopping by from SITS and this is so creative! I remember this book as a child and I loved it!
Great ideas! I might have to try a few of these with the boys. My boys always get annoyed when I read this book because I go into a big explanation of how Carle was incorrect in calling it (and illustrating) a cocoon. Lots of, “Oh mom, not the chrysalis stuff, again” and eye rolls. Such is life, I guess. Still a personal favorite, I just “fix” the inaccuracy as I read!
I love the many ways you used this book! And what a great idea about using grapes for the body.
Mom’s Home Run
The caterpillar snack is adorable. My toddler would eat it right up.
So many great ideas!
great ideas 🙂 we need to start working on site words here…
I have been meaning to get this popular children’s book for my daughter. What a fun activity!
May need to put it on her summer reading list!
I love how you used it to make a sight word game! I hope you’ll link this up to Teach Me Tuesday at Preschool Powol Packets!!
Some great activities!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
What fun activities! I love the grape hungry caterpillar – too cute!
Thanks for linking up to TGIF! I will be sharing this post on Facebook, Pinterest, and twitter this week =)
I hope you come by and link up later today =)
Beth