What better way to start your Spring lesson planning than with the tried and true book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which continues to expand into a whole collection of titles you can use to plan a fun Spring Classroom Theme around!
This story, written and illustrated by the infamous Eric Carle, was a must use every spring in my own preschool lesson planning! The original story offers such unique artwork in a style that is Eric Carle’s alone, and pulls the children into the fun activity of going through all of the days of the week as this very hungry caterpillar munches and crunches his way through a whole lot of food choices, some healthy and some sneaky!
With all of the titles that have come out following the original – from The First Spring to shapes, counting, and colours and holiday themes – it’s pretty achievable and highly recommended to consider creating an entire theme around this fun story character. Kids can learn about the caterpillar’s life cycle and it ultimately turning into a beautiful butterfly – they can also spot it hiding between Easter eggs when you move into our next theme of chicks and bunnies for this Easter!
HERE ARE MY VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR SPRING THEMED BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS FOR YOUR CLASSROOM.
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I look forward to recommending classroom products that I have used in my own lesson planning.
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1. THE FIRST SPRING
Lets start off with a book for our littlest of littles, The Very Hungry Caterpillar’s First Spring! Written and illustrated by Eric Carle, this colourful board book is the perfect story to introduce the smallest concepts about spring time to our smallest learners.
2. THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR
Soon, these infants and toddlers will advance to the original title, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which has always been a favourite fun tale to be told at Circle Time with preschoolers who eagerly follow this very hungry caterpillar through its week long gorge of eating both healthy food and sneaky snacks!
3. THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR PLUSH TOY!
Before I move onto any other book titles, I would strongly recommend picking up this adorable plush caterpillar to help you tell these stories to your class – they will love it! Even better is if you leave your caterpillar story character closeby to your Very Hungry Caterpillar book collection, where the children are invited to take turns playing with it before or after storytime!
4. WHERE IS THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR?
Another way to bring the children deeper into this theme is with this Lift A Flap version of the original story! As you read through the pages of the story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar is hiding behind all of the food and the children have so much fun finding caterpillar on each page!
After the children start to have fun with The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a story character, you can start to delve deeper into what a caterpillar really is and what it will turn into over its lifecycle – you could even possibly bring in a caterpillar kit as a second theme!
5. HOW DOES A CATERPILLAR CHANGE?
I was so excited when I found this Hungry Caterpillar book that explains how a caterpillar changes and what it changes into! This Life Cycle Story is such a perfect progression to the original story and compliments any Spring Science Theme for young scientists leading into STEM!
If you’d like to expand on the Very Hungry Caterpillar Theme, here are a few more titles to focus on specific skill sets including learning about Colours, Counting & Shapes.
6. LEARN ABOUT COLOURS.
7. LEARN ABOUT COUNTING.
8. LEARN ABOUT SHAPES.
There are so many other options to expand on your Very Hungry Caterpillar theme and we will update you with other options as the seasons continue to change. Today, we are ending off with a fun Easter title and will create an entire new Easter Collection soon!
9. PEEK A BOO EASTER BOARD BOOK.
This book is the perfect one to follow the Lift A Flap title as you continue the Hide & Seek concept for kids to spot caterpillar – this time amongst the Easter Eggs! I would recommend introducing this book to the children after you cover the concept of the life cycle of the caterpillar and start to move into Easter with chicks and eggs and bunnies!
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