Children's Book Review: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

November 15th, 2006

Is this book part of your preschooler’s library? If it isn’t, it should be. So many lessons to learn from such a simple story.
It starts off with an egg on a leaf. Out pops the caterpillar and he goes in search of food. At the end of his eating adventure, he makes himself a cocoon and later emerges as a butterfly.
What lessons can you get out of this story:
1. Learn the days of the week
2. Counting e.g. he eats one apple, two pears, three plums etc….
3. Names of different fruits and foods.
4. What happens when you eat too much junk food. At first 5 days the caterpillar eats fruits, then on the 6th day he eats quite a bit of junk like cakes, ice cream, lollipop and a cupcake (among other things). He ends up with a stomachache. To feel better again, he eats a nice green leaf. Aah, the goodness of vegetables.
5. Life cycle of a butterfly.

Click here for our Special Feature Page on The Very Hungry Caterpillar at Valuebookshop International.
There you will find not only the book, but also games and gifts that you can consider as Christmas gifts!

You can come up with many followup activities with this book. Can’t think of any, here is a list of for your convenience:
1. DLTK’s Book Breaks have stuff for felt board, story sequencing, coloring pages and related crafts.
2. Teachingheart.net also with lesson ideas and printables.
3. The official Eric Carle website with plenty of suggestions including body movements, art ideas, and even a Very Hungry Caterpillar themed picnic.