Oh the beloved little caterpillar who eats his way through the week and a whole array of food before he realizes caterpillars eat leaves! Who can resist reading this treasured classic by Eric Carle to initiate spring and teach about the days of the week?

There are so many engaging activities from numbers, arts and crafts, and retelling to prewriting and working together that it can be hard to choose where to begin.

Here’s a sneak peek at some activities I do with my lovebugs in my classroom each spring. Take a peek and see!

Name Building and Patterns

Get those kiddos working on letter recognition, name building, and patterns while building their very own Hungry Caterpillar. Cut enough circle for each letter of your kiddo’s name. I used my 1″ hole punch. Let your kiddo put the letters in order. Be sure to have him name each letter as he puts his caterpillar together to reinforce those letter names.

Pre-writing line tracing is great for developing those oh so important finger muscles and building muscle memory. I toss these fun Very Hungry Caterpillar Line Tracing Cards in my writing and art center for my kiddos to trace for a fun way to infuse those developing writing skills. I simply laminate and cut each one out and place them in a bucket with dry erase markers and erasers.

Gross Motor Fruit Toss

Get those kids moving and practice those gross motor throwing skills with this Very Hungry Caterpillar Toss. Have them practice throwing over hand as well as underhand. Step up the challenge by increasing the distance and talk about why it is harder with a greater distance. Extend this activity into math by counting the fruits that make it in and how many don’t. Compare which number is more and less.

Days of the Week

I found this cute little activity at We Are Teachers. I haven’t done this one yet but will be adding it to my Very Hungry Caterpillar activities!

Creative Arts

Promote exploration through art as well as social emotional skills with this interactive art project. I do this activity at small group time and allow children to work together to make this multi texture butterfly alongside classmates. I supply the kiddos with a variety of art supplies, but not enough for everyone to have one of everything. This encourages them to make choices, work in close proximity to others, share, problem solve when a friend is using a supply they want to use, follow directions, and use fine motor.

For this activity I do tell my kiddos what to use in each section. You can see that all yellow tissue paper is in one section and blue torn paper is in another, while the purple Do-A-Dot markers are in another area. This is part of following directions. Some of the supplies I have used in the past are: Do-A-Dot markers, paper to tear with fingers, tissue paper squares to crinkle, crayons, markers, sequins, beads, etc.

Looking for other amazing literature activities to do with your kiddo? Check out some of my other posts.