This week we based our camp set-up on the well known and loved story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar! Taking inspiration from children’s literature helped our educators transform our site into a bright and colourful learning space.
“On Monday he ate through one apple!”
This Monday, Little Forest Folk-ers got stuck into lots of ‘book talk’. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar throughout mealtimes. We discussed his big appetite - which led to lots of enthusiastic expressions of our little explorers’ own favourite foods, and the similarities between what they and their friends enjoy/dislike eating. It was a big win for oranges and bananas!
Children then got to explore our costume area, where they could dress up as beautiful colourful butterflies and dance and fly around camp!
“On Tuesday he ate through two pears!”
This Tuesday, a humongous caterpillar appeared in the centre of camp, fit with his very own mouth, where the children could feed him his extensive list of foods. The children tested their recall/memory abilities when having to choose between an assortment of foods - some having been mentioned in our story. Little ones had to consider “did the Very Hungry Caterpillar eat this?” and could then feed the caterpillar his grub.
Educators explained the life cycle of a caterpillar and then everyone made some beautiful artistic creations in response. Using different shapes of dried pasta as representatives, we fashioned an egg, a caterpillar, the cocoon and lastly a pretty butterfly!
“On Wednesday he ate through three plums!”
Wednesday was all things bugs! Our little adventurers got to explore the exciting world of creepy crawlies and used magnifying glasses to search around camp for worms and insects. We discussed how to treat all animals kindly and with care.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar story is also a fantastic opportunity for some maths! When reading our book at mealtimes, children were asked to recall the amounts of foods from memory. And as the book was in progress, children were prompted to follow along by counting upwards on their fingers!
“On Thursday he ate through four strawberries!”
On Thursday our little ones got to use primary colours to explore colour mixing, "how can we make green?" "Which two colours make purple?" After their colours were finalised they got stuck into some great expressive painting.
Educators created some hand-made maths resources. Children had to attempt to add some fingerprints next to a caterpillar head to form its long bendy body. In true forest fashion, the prints were made by first making a sloppy mud-water mixture which the children dipped their fingers into. They had to follow a numerical prompt and match the amount of muddy prints they made to the required number. This created lots of muddy and bendy caterpillars in varying lengths!
And....
“On Friday he ate through five oranges!”
What a brilliant week so far! We cannot wait for more forest fun next week
Little Forest Folk
Fulham