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Saturday, May 14, 2011

Crafting & Learning with The Very Hungry Caterpillar

It's impossible to do a Caterpillar Theme and not incorporate Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

I love this book because you can do so much with it:
Life Cycle of a Butterfly
Days of the Week
Counting
Nutrition

That's not including all the skills we covered while crafting and doing our learning activities:
graphing
story sequence
hand/eye coordination
gross motor skills (painting)

We began by reading the story The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle



I bought The Very Hungry Caterpillar Coloring Book version for us to color and keep - such a cute idea to make it personal and it retells the same story!



After reading the story we worked on re-telling & sequencing the story with these awesome The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cards I found from Confessions of a Homeschooler & since we were reviewing the story it was the perfect time to complete our Graph using the cards as well.



The Very Hungry Caterpillar Sequence Cards & Graph (Confessions of a Homeschooler)

I also found this adorable Very Hungry Caterpillar Felt Set idea on A Wednesday Afternoon blog - I didn't do it but it was so cute I had to share it with you!

Craft: Egg Carton Caterpillar


What You Need:
egg carton - the Lil Divas decided they wanted long caterpillars so I cut the egg carton in half and we used the whole thing. I have done it before only using 4 sections (1 for head & 3 for body)
red & green paint
paint brushes
wiggly eyes
glue (we used tacky glue)
markers
brown pipe cleaners

What To Do:

1. Paint one section of the egg carton red (head) and the remaining sections green (body)


2. Your finished product should look like this - allow ample time to dry. We let it dry overnight & finished the next day.


3. The following day I used a hole puncher to punch holes into each section of the body (both sides) and the head (antenna)


4. The Lil Divas put the pipe cleaners through the holes for legs (we cut pipe cleaners in half)


5. Shape legs as desired or leave as straight (my oldest Diva liked hers straight)



6. Add wiggly eyes to face, make a nose with marker and add pipe cleaner to head for antenna (we used about 1/3 size) then behold your Very Hungry Caterpillar - so cute!



Other Story Extension Activities:

Days of the Week Review:
Handwriting Sheets - (First-School)
Lift & Paste Book - (Making Learning Fun)

More Great Resources:
Very Hungry Caterpillar Lapbook by 1+1+1=1
Very Hungry Caterpillar Ideas & Printables by Making Learning Fun
Very Hungry Caterpillar Unit by Teaching Heart

I hope you enjoyed our Very Hungry Caterpillar Fun! Be sure to check out our other Eric Carle Activities and Caterpillar/Butterfly Fun

Bern

Linking to STart, Childhood 101 - We Play!Sharing Time,  Get Crafty,  Read, Explore, Learn , For the Kids Friday, and Preschool CornerFeed Me Books Friday  **

8 comments:

  1. I LOVE this!! I'm going to have to do the caterpillar project during the summer for sure!

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  2. Such great ideas! And I love your gorgeous little ones' faces of concentration. Thanks so much for sharing :)

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  3. Who doesn't like the hungry caterpillar? And what perfect caterpillars you made! Love them and love the look of concentration on the girls' faces!


    Thank you for linking up to Kids Get Crafty again!
    Maggy

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  4. So cute!! I have an empty egg carton already on hand!

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  5. This is such a cute way to reuse an egg carton!

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  6. Thanks for adding this to last week's High paw, Bernadette. :) Girls surely look like having fun! ;)

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  7. Catching up on neglected links! Thanks for linking up at Feed Me Books Friday! I love egg carton caterpillars - so many options! Have you checked out the resources and printables at ERic Carles website, too?

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Thanks for taking the time to visit Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas! I hope you will stay awhile to explore all we have to offer!