Story Time with V & Me - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I hope you all enjoyed this Story Time with V & Me.

I have chosen this firm favourite because there is so much that you can easily teach your children from it.

So, let’s get started!

1. The Days of the Week

The caterpillar is very busy eating throughout the week. The easiest way to teach children the days of the week is through song. There are tons of different songs out there and a quick google search will find them for you. My favourite is to the tune of The Adams Family and it gets well and truly stuck in your head! I enjoy it because even if the child is still really young and has limited language they can still clap at the appropriate places (or throughout the song!) to show that they are listening.

A nice way of checking if the children have truly understood the concept is to teach them yesterday, today and tomorrow. In conversation you could say “Yesterday was Monday. Tomorrow is Wednesday. So today is…?” This helps them understand the passage of time as well as learn the days of the week.

2. The Food

This is the fun part!

Let the children taste the food as the caterpillar eats it. Name the food and ask the children to describe what it looks and feels like, e.g. round, smooth, hard and shiny for the lollipop and rough, round and firm for the orange. Then let them taste the food and again ask them to describe it, e.g. juicy, sweet and soft for the strawberry and salty, firm and dry for the salami. This will expand the children’s vocabulary and their grasp of the meanings of the words. You could describe food items too to demonstrate, encourage and further the process.

Another food related topic could be helping the children categorize the items. There could be a number of different ways to categorize the food, e.g. healthy food versus treats or by colour or by shape. The possibilities are endless.

This lovely book even tells us what happens when we eat too many treats – stomachache! That could open up a whole other topic of discussion and you can link the importance of a healthy lifestyle and teeth brushing into that conversation. Don’t forget to explain what a healthy lifestyle constitutes, i.e. moving enough, sleeping enough, personal hygiene and healthy eating too.

3. Numbers

Using the story and the food, the children can count out the correct number of apples, pears, plums, strawberries and oranges. This teaches one to one correspondence which is vital for a true understanding of numbers.

By adding the written symbols 1-5 the children will then start to make the connection between the symbol and the quantity, which again, is vital.

They could put all the food together and count the total. You can use this to teach simple addition and introduce the + and = signs. There is no need to make it difficult. Simply say “+ tells us to put them all together in one line and = tells us to count them all up”.

4. The Life Cycle of the Caterpillar

The most obvious thing to teach using this lovely book is the life cycle of the caterpillar. The children will be amazed to learn that the caterpillar becomes a butterfly. Don’t be afraid to use the correct terminology and teach them words like metamorphosis. It’s a big word that simply means change and the children will enjoy trying to get their tongue around it. Even if they don’t remember the word, they have been exposed to it and when they learn about it later on in life the seed will have been planted.

Talk about the different stages that the caterpillar goes through and link that to the different stages they will go through as they grow up. You could also show the children other life cycles and maybe even go pond dipping for tadpoles in the spring.

These are a few ideas that you can do with your children after they have listened to the story. You might not be in a position to do them immediately which is why I have included this free downloadable craft that the children can start doing now. (Not only is it fun to do but it will strengthen their hand-eye co-ordination, work their fine motor skills and encourage perseverance.)