In honor of the upcoming 45th anniversary of book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, I have a fun caterpillar activity to share with you today! Tomorrow I will have a Very Hungry Caterpillar giveaway too!!
Our caterpillar color sorting activity is super easy to make and fun to play with again and again.
I did this activity with my 3-year-old and it can be adapted for younger and older kids. Jump over to Instagram to see how my 16 month old got himself involved. 🙂
Here's what you need:
colored cardstock or construction paper, scissors, painters tape, markers, a wall or flat surface you can stick tape to.
Here's how to make the caterpillar color sorting activity:
Grab several pieces of colored paper and something round to trace (I used a cereal bowl) and make several colorful circles and cut them out.
Use the scraps to cut out small shapes in each color-- squares, rectangles, circles, ovals, hearts, etc.
Draw some big eyes and antennae and then stick your caterpillar to the wall (or table) using painters tape. Stick the colorful shapes to the wall too. You can add legs if you want as well.
Next explain to your child that their job is to stick the colored shapes on the matching colored caterpillar segments.
As soon as my daughter saw this she was immediately ready to get started sorting!
Although this is a color sorting activity, we threw shapes into the activity in a low key way so that it got us talking about and exploring shapes (and colors) while we sorted. We also counted the different shapes as we sorted, so we added in a little math too.
For preschoolers this can be a simple independent station you can set up or you can work together. Instead of sorting shapes you could instead add colored pieces of paper with letters or numbers.
By using painters tape the paper shouldn't rip when you move the pieces around and you can use the shape pieces and caterpillar again and again. If you want to preserve them longer, laminate them or cover them with contact paper. Ours didn't last too long because my 16 month old had a different activity in mind.
You could also easily stick a piece of contact paper over your caterpillar (sticky side out) so that kids could just stick shapes right onto the sticky caterpillar without needing tape.
I loved how simple this activity was to make. It only took a few minutes... and yet, how engaged my daughter was the entire time she was sorting. She was so proud when she finished and had gotten each colored shape in the right spot.
For younger kids, don't worry about sorting and instead just have them stick colored paper scraps on the caterpillar. It will be so fun to see the creative and colorful caterpillars they come up with!
Ever since my kids were little they have been fascinated by caterpillars, mostly because of how much they LOVE The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I am so excited to be an Official Very Hungry Caterpillar Blogger and celebrate the anniversary of this great book!
Make sure you stop back tomorrow for our awesome #veryhungrycaterpillar Giveaway and a huge round up of tons of cool Very Hungry Caterpillar inspired crafts and activities.
In the meantime... check out these other fun color activities that we love if you need something else to do today:
6 Ways to Learn and Play with Colors
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