Making Simple Story Props for The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle has been one of my favourite books to read to my Kindy children. This book is an excellent material that I use to teach the children about different subjects, such as the life stages of a butterfly, basic counting, days of the week, and colour recognition. Each page has only a few words but has bright illustrations, that even though at this stage they are still unable to read, they can follow the sequence and are able to retell the story just by looking at the pictures.

The Story

After the caterpillar popped out of the egg one Sunday morning, he started to look for some food as he was very hungry. On Monday, he ate through one red apple. On Tuesday, two green pears. On Wednesday, three purple plums. On Thursday, four red strawberries. On Friday, five oranges. On Saturday, the caterpillar ate a variety of foods: chocolate cake, ice cream cone, pickle, cheese, salami, lollipop, cherry pie, sausage, cupcake, and watermelon - which gave him stomach ache.

On Sunday, the caterpillar ate one green leaf, and after eating it, he was not hungry anymore. He became a big, fat caterpillar. Then he "built his small house, called a cocoon, around himself," and he stayed inside the cocoon for over two weeks. Then he "nibbled a hole in the cocoon and pushed himself out", and he became a beautiful butterfly.

The End.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Story Props

I created a story props for this book, which we will be using in Week 3 of Term 1. I am hoping that this resource will last longer so that I will be able to use this over and over again. I got the inspiration from Pinterest and followed the procedures.

Since I didn't have an empty Pringles tin to be recycled, I opened a new one and emptied the Pringles chips into a different container and then sealed it. (I will have to eat it later whilst watching Netfilx on TV.)

I glued a piece of light green paper around the Pringles tin, then stuck a cut-out caterpillar on the tin. I cut out a rectangular hole in the mouth area that should be big enough for the bottle caps to fit.

I covered the whole tin with contact paper or adhesive plastic for protection and long-term use. Meanwhile, I printed out some pictures of the food items, cut them out, and glued them onto the bottle caps.

I also printed out the story visual aids and laminated them (of course). These visual aids will either be posted on the board or placed near the story props to aid the children (and the parents) in telling the story. The book will also be on display.

The children will definitely enjoy the story, at the same time, "feeding" the caterpillar with bottle caps, which in the process will also help develop their fine motor control, hand-eye coordination and counting skills.