Very Hungry Caterpillar Day

This year marks the 40th anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which was first published in 1969. On March 20th, “The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day,” schools, libraries and bookstores will be hosting events and activities to mark this special occasion. Additional celebrations and activities based on this much-loved book will be held throughout the year in schools and libraries and by readers and friends all around the world. Also in March, a special edition of the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar Pop-Up Book featuring Eric Carle’s illustrations in a 3-dimensional format, will be available for sale at local bookstores.  To celebrate this wonderful book, which is one of my favourites, we have been doing some Very Hungry Caterpillar crafts, and ended the week with a Very Hungry Caterpillar picnic featuring the foods from the story.

 Click here to view a short video of Eric Carle talking about his book The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I have lots of Hungry Caterpillar resources in my setting.  Here are just some of them...

The children particuarly loved playing with floor puzzle.

All week we have had snack time with all the foods from the story...  On Monday he ate through one apple.  On Tuesday he ate through two pears... etc.

The children also did some caterpillar crafts.  They coloured in some caterpillar and butterfly sheets and we made an egg box Hungry Caterpillar.  As we have chickens, I only buy eggs for the children in my care, so I don't have egg boxes that often, so we had to make do with one egg box between all of us to make this lovely caterpillar.  Each child painted a piece of his body and I did his head and his antennas.  He looks quite happy sitting on his leaf...

We also made these lovely handprint caterpillar paintings...

On Thursday afternoon we had  Very Hungry Caterpillar picnic with some of the foods from the story..  On Saturday he ate through one piece of chocolate cake, one ice cream cone, one pickle, one slice of swiss cheese, one piece of salami, one lollipop, one piece of cherry pie, one sausage, one cupcake and one slice of watermelon....

I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of the things we've been doing this week.  If you would like to see more of my Very Hungry Caterpillar projects please take a look at my other blog here.

Next week:  Easter!