The Very Hungry Caterpillar
As part of our All Creatures Great and Small topic, we were introduced to a colourful but very hungry caterpillar. On our small world we retold and sequenced The Very Hungry Caterpillar story and in role play, we were scientists identifying, classifying and grouping minibeasts.
Most of our minibeasts were plastic, but we had some real life caterpillars too. We observed our caterpillars as they transformed inside their cocoons and emerged as beautiful butterflies. We were sad to wave them goodbye, but we knew they would be happier in a natural habitat.
Meanwhile, all areas of our classroom were crawling with caterpillars - playdough caterpillars, a caterpillar salad, fine motor bead caterpillars, paper chain caterpillars, printed caterpillars with marshmallows and balloons, and caterpillars created with our construction materials.
With so many bright and colourful caterpillars, we started to see beautiful butterflies emerge. We created butterfly gardens with buttons, painted fold and print symmetrical butterflies, collaged tissue paper butterflies, and built natural loose part butterflies. Our wow art moment was created when watching our coloured patterns blend as we added water to our coffee filters. Then we folded our delicate wings and attached them with a pipe cleaner, curling the ends to make antennae.
We wrote a list of the foods the Very Hungry Caterpillar eats. It was a rather long list. Then we wrote independent sentences, and revisited our sentences to make them more interesting. We added the day of the week and some adjectives to describe the fruit. We rewrote our interesting sentences in our Very Hungry Caterpillar story books. Our own printed marshmallow caterpillars were also feeling hungry, so they munched through our painted fruits.
Next time, our creatures are large and loud. So watch out!