If you spot the mistake on the letter sheet – well done! My excuse it was 10pm and I’d had a glass of wine before making it! Made a new one now!
It’s taken a while to collect resources needed for this but worth it as we have had so much fun and it is such a flexible resource that it can be used over and over again!
Just before Christmas we bought some number and letter paint sponges from Morrison’s for about £2. They’ve been brilliant. One night I sat and sponged numbers 1-10, all the letters of the alphabet and the kids name on paper and laminated it. We have also been collecting the plastic lids of milk cartons (or similar sized lids). I’ve now had enough to write the alphabet on twice – one per letter. I’ve used a permanent marker to write on the lids. I will be doing another couple of sets of letters, and will also do numbers 0-9 and a set of uppercase letters when I’ve collected more lids.
We had a good hour of fun matching the lids to the letters on the laminated sheet, and Harrison was so pleased that he could do it. Alex just had plenty of fun putting them in a jar and tipping them back out again, but you know, its fine motor skills and all that 🙂 . It could also give opportunities for talking about colour as the lids are all different colours.
What I love about this is that it something that can be used again and again. It is great for toddlers of Harrison’s age (2.5y) for simple letter and name recognition, for preschoolers to learn CVC words, and for key stage one and two aged children for spelling practise and games.
Get collecting bottle lids!!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar: toeprints
As well as our handprint caterpillars today, we made toe print ones!!! We painted our toes green, forgetting at first that the Very Hungry Caterpillar has a red head (hence why some are red!). This was fun because the paint was cold and slimy on toes, and tickled!!
Then we printed lots of them onto a sheet of white paper.
When they were dry we cut ten of them out and stuck them down to make a page of ten very hungry caterpillars!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar: handprints
I love handprints! You can make just about anything out of a handprint or footprint, it makes a lovely memento and is an excellent tactile and sensory thing to do. When Harrison was little he really hated getting his hands dirty and touch anything messy but now loves painting his hands! When we were decorating our living room before Christmas we gave him a little paintbrush and some paint to ‘help’. He immediately painted his hands and proceeded to help decorate with handprints! Alex has always loved having his hands painted, obviously not as sensitive!
To carry on with our Very Hungry Caterpillar theme, we made caterpillar handprints. I saw this idea on Pinterest somewhere so can’t take credit for the idea!
All you need is blue, green and red paint, white paper and a black pen
I painted the palms of their hands green and their fingers blue
and then repeatedly printed them in a row on the paper. We did three or four prints. When we had done this (and washed the paint off!), we painted a bright red head for the caterpillar and left the pictures to dry. Once they had dried we drew on antenna and eyes and mouth with black pen.
What do you think?
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The Very Hungry Caterpillar: Bug in a jar and paper link caterpillars
We had so much fun yesterday making caterpillars in a jar and paper link caterpillars!
Both were really simple activities. The paper link caterpillar is fairly easy for little fingers and gives opportunities for discussion on shape. All you need are some strips of green paper and one strip of red. The size of the strips and the amount of green strips depends on how big you want your caterpillars to be!
Take a strip of green paper and create a circle shape as if you were making a paper chain and use a glue stick to secure it.
Repeat this for each strip of green paper and glue the links together side by side. When you have finished the green body, make a red link for the caterpillars head. Finish off by drawing on eyes and mouth with black pen.
The kids have loved wriggling their caterpillars around!
Our second activity was mostly done by me as it is quite fiddly and we used a glue gun, which although is low heat still gets quite hot. It has been played with lots and we are going to put into the story sack, so we can feed him and act the story out with him.
For this you need some green pompoms (we just used two biggish ones) and a red one. We also used two tiny yellow ones for eyes and small bits of purple pipe cleaner for antennae.
We glued the green ones together for the body and the red one for the head using the glue gun, and then stuck two small yellow ones on as eyes.
We curled the purple pipe cleaners around a pencil and then glued them to the red pompom. We popped him into a clean jar (obviously plastic would be better!) and added in a couple of green paper leaves.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar hats
Today we have been pretending to be The Very Hungry Cattherpillar, with our hats!!!
These were really easy to make. I cut two strips of green paper out, (for each hat) and glued one end together to make one long strip. I then measured it round their heads for an idea of size – too small and it fall off, too big and it slips over their faces! When the size was about right I used a piece of sticky tape to make it into a band.
I then cut out two larger red circles and two smaller yellow circles, which Harrison stuck on as eyes.
We finished by attaching two swirly antennae made from purple paper.
We then had loads of fun crawling around pretending to be the caterpillar, eating lots of food and making up our own version of the story!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar: feeding the caterpillar
‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ by Eric Carle is one of those kids books that will be read for many generations to come. I’m 28 and remember reading and enjoying it when I was little. I bought the book for Harrison when I was about five months pregnant, and we have read it many times!
We weren’t going to start this theme until Monday, but the kids spotted the bits for it and I’m not going to discourage them!!
First of all we decorated the wall in the dining room with some Very Hungry Caterpillar things. This wall is opposite where the kids sit to eat so they will see it a lot, and over the week we will add our bits to it.
We made a caterpillar spelling out their names. This was simple to make. On green paper I cut out circles for each letter and a red circle for the head. On the red circle I drew a friendly face and on the body we wrote the letters. This is great for teaching letters and name recognition. Harrison points excitedly every time he sees it!!
I also printed out and laminated (yes, I love laminating. Stand still long enough and I will laminate you!) these days of the week cards from Making Learning Fun. These are also on the wall and when we finish the theme, we will put these in a story sack.
As well as this, I printed off some cute little number cards showing what the caterpillar ate each day, which will also be laminated for the story sack! These can be downloaded here.
They loved playing ‘feed the caterpillar’ which was a great start and hook into the theme. This had taken a bit of prior preparation one night last week, when everyone had gone to bed. I used up all my odds and ends of felt but it could easily be done with paper – you could print these fab printables off from Twinkl
I covered a tube (Pringles type) with green paper and used a craft knife to cut a ‘mouth’ in the plastic lid. I used a glue gun to stick on pipe cleaners for antannae. I then used the scraps of felt to create all the food from the story. This was fiddly but fun!!
We sat and read the story together and ‘fed’ the caterpillar the food as we went through it. They loved this!! It was perfect for numeracy skills as they counted them, speaking skills as they told me what each item was, and great for fine motor skill development as the had to push the food into a small slit – perfect for Alex!!!
Long after finishing the story, they were still having fun with it, and even wanted to play with it whilst watching their new ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ DVD that nanny bought them (from The Works, £2.99!).
A great start to our themed week!
Activities 4 Kidz 