About hungry caterpillar.

Everyone knows the book about hungry caterpillar by Eric Carl. Children always ready to listen when teachers are reading this wonderful book! Today we were talking about gardening and I decided to implement a story about hungry caterpillar in our lesson. The idea was taken from the video on YouTube(unfortunately I don't have a reference to it)
So we started with the wonderful bag, look what is in it!


We discussed with children where we can use it, why we need glows,  how garden fork different from regular one, and so many other questions, whose are related to gardening.
Some children told me that they don't have a backyard and we decided that they may have a little garden on the balcony in boxes with the soil.
We looked on the picture and described little house with the beautiful flowers around, discussed how we can grow up plants, what we need for it, and how seeds look like.

While older children were matching seeds with the picture of plant, little guys were shaking packages with seeds and listening how they sound!

I was surprised, that my children could match all seeds with the picture of plant. There were some very tricky seeds! But Daria told:"We have a little garden on our back yard and grow there watermelons, tomato, cucumbers and a lot of herbs.(I just remind that it is very good sensory activity, which I did before during my placements in CCC, but pictures disappeared - it is good point to repeat it)

 And now - Story Time!
You will need:

• Puppets SUN and Moon;
• One small caterpillar & one big(Actually enough one, but I used two);
• Piece of foil - to make a cocoon;
• Variation of plastic food - as much as you can. Make sure that you have enough for 5 days, for example - one strawberry, two cucumbers, three grapes, four oranges, five pears(I had three pears big and two small - so we could make a pattern) Other food doesn't matter - may be anything what you can find in your toy shelf or use natural fruits and veggies.
• Bid paper leaf with the "caterpillar egg";
• Butterfly

This is my actors:

And this is my scenery:

Just for example,

 I had much more, trust me children never tired to look what is coming next!

.You can start with the book by Eric Karl, but just for the beginning. If children familiar with this book they will help you to tell the story. During the story time reciprocate children to name and count day of the week, count fruits, name them, name colours, guess unknown fruits or vegetables, let them guess what inside the boxes(If you can open them and show what is inside), make a pattern with same fruits....

Can you continue my pattern? And finally, Saturday finished....and caterpillar went to sleep.... Wrap the Big caterpillar with the foil, put it on the floor and ask children guess what going to happen next?
If there is anybody who can help you and insensibly change your foil package for another one - with the butterfly that will be fantastic! So, you are opening package and WHAT DO YOU SEE INSIDE?

A BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY!

You done! Now just let them play with the toys and repeat this story again and again!

while children are playing with the toys I set up the table for art and craft. Today we have children 2 - 10 years old, so art class should be age appropriate!

Little children were decorating butterfly wings, bigger also were making a body with the sponge,(couple bodies I prepared before) For Alex who is 10 was different activity - he was making a sock puppet "Caterpillar". Just want to share with you fantastic place with huge diversity of activities for children different ages - Danielle's Place - Puppets found there!

I just love this book!

by Eric Karl "Very hungry caterpillar"

P.S.Recently I found this poster just want to share with you

http://nicholsoncartoons.com.au