A HUNGRY CATERPILLAR DAY!
Welcome to our “Instill the Love of Reading – DIY At Home Reading Camp” series. For this camp day, we turned to the wonderful world of Eric Carle, his famous Hungry Caterpillar, and a few of his other books!
We hope this article helps your little ones find the JOY in reading! If you’re looking for more ideas on this camp series or activities to inspire kids to love reading, please feel free to check out our other At Home Literature Camp posts and Love of Reading.
A TYPICAL DAY
All kids are different and you can definitely vary your day with whatever works for you 🙂 But the gist of our day was having our kiddos focus on some work books or online learning tools in the early morning, an intro to the day’s theme after they were done, some videos around lunch time, and themed activities (reading time, writing time, crafts, food crafts/snacks, and games or experiments) in the afternoon. Feel free to pick and choose whatever works for you 🙂
INTRO
Many kids are already familiar with the Hungry Caterpillar (or other stories), but if not, feel free to browse Eric Carle’s Website and head over to the library or bookstore to grab a few books!
WHAT TO WATCH
- Eric Carle Reads the Very Hungry Caterpillar (~ 2m) – There’s a series of YouTube videos where the Hungry Caterpillar is read out loud. We found this one where the author is actually reading it.
- The Hungry Caterpillar Audio in Different Languages. On the author’s website, there is a series of audio links where you can hear the Hungry Caterpillar first few pages read in a different language. This can be quite eye opening for kids to see visually (by flag) and then hear how many different kids all over the world are reading their same books!
FOOD CRAFTS / SNACKS
If your kids are like mine, they’ll eat food they prepare for themselves way more readily than if I make them. Here are a few that were fun and easy for them to put together:
- Caterpillars and Butterflies! If you’re familiar with some of our other “All Things Butterflies” posts, you may see some familiar green grape caterpillars. These are a quick, easy, and healthy snack your kiddos can make!
- Fruit Loop Caterpillars. Have your little one sort out some green and red fruit loops and create a caterpillar – OR let them get creative and mix and match colors.
READING
It’s no secret that reading helps prevent that summer slide. Some even say this is the most important. Here are a few related to our theme:
- A Very Hungry Caterpillar
- Other books by Eric Carle (this is the English link but there are other languages as well): English Language Books
WRITING & WRITING PROMPTS
Just like reading, writing helps prevent that summer slide by both encouraging their creativity but also their motor skills and penmanship.
If you’ve got a little one, have them trace words related to the theme: Caterpillar, Butterfly, etc..
If you’ve got older children, have them write a sentence or two up to a page or two (depending on their age). Encourage them to be creative AND give reasons for why they made certain choices.
- What is your favorite Eric Carle Book and Why?
- Create a mini-story about a butterfly seeing a caterpillar. What would the caterpillar ask? What would the butterfly say? Using Eric Carle’s tissue painting method, create some images to go along with your story!
CRAFTS
If your kids are anything like mine, they LOVE crafts – (mostly, I think, for making the mess 🙂 ). Here are a few that we worked on during our camp and were pretty easy to handle.
- Eric Carle’s Website has a number of Downloads and Activities Worksheets, which are a quick and easy activity for the little ones!
- We tried out his tissue method (How I Paint Tissues) and actually integrated this craft with their writing prompt portion of the day.
- We also created a number of crafts that are in our “All Things Butterflies” series: Butterfly Crafts.
THANK YOU!!!
Thank you for checking out our at home play / summer camp guide & Thank You to Eric Carle for creating such beautiful, beloved books! Hopefully this has helped grow the love of reading in your home and/or even inspired more ideas! Feel free to browse and find more literature camp ideas here: At Home Literature Camp.
Also, if you haven’t already, check out some of our other at home play / summer guides: DIY Camps.
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Happy Reading!
