Wordy Wednesday: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Every Wednesday I will post a great book for you and your child to read together.  There will often be a simple craft or project to go with it to further promote reading comprehension, vocabulary, and communication.

Today I picked this Eric Carle classic for our Wordy Wednesday post mostly because my two year old had a blast last night watching an inch worm on our kitchen island scoot along (he came in on a bunch of basil I used in Gracie’s sweet pea basil puree). She’s into bugs lately so I thought we’d make her a little pet caterpillar to accompany this story.

There are tons of craft ideas I’ve seen to go along with this story but I woke up in no mood to paint (plus laundry piles may or may not be completely obscuring our dining room table) so I went with the totally clean, paper strip and tape caterpillar.

He’s a hit. (Please note the spider t-shirt. It’s her current favorite. She tells me this morning, “Don’t worry Mom, they are not SCARY spiders, they are BABY spiders.” So that’s great. Apparently baby spiders are not scary.)

Simply cut some 1″ wide paper strips of green and one strip of red. Roll and tape each strip into a ring.  Arrange them in a row and add a long strip of tape across all of them. Pinch the circles together so that all parts of the tape are touching paper. This should naturally give your caterpillar some wiggle.  Cut little antennae and tape them on and do the same with some eyeballs. You could draw these on too. Then present it to your toddler as their new pet.

  

I also printed these cute coloring pages out for Lilly to do later with her babysitter. She’s on a coloring binge these days so they should occupy her for a long time. I actually think I want to sit down and color some later! They’re just so cute.

And finally, a little collection of other ideas incase you have more energy/are feeling more motivated/inspired/tolerant of mess etc.

 

Click for sources.

Don’t forget to send me pictures if you make our Wordy Wednesday projects with your own littles! Hashtag #wordywednesday @SweeterSideMom on twitter and instagram. Happy Wednesday all!

Got a great kids book suggestion for my Wordy Wednesday posts?  A family favorite that your child would like to make a craft about? Leave me a comment! We are always on the hunt for new books to read!