The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is probably a classic picture book for kids. It is a simple story about the number of food items a very hungry caterpillar eats each day of the week until he finally suffers a stomachache, eats a leaf and creates a cocoon from which he emerges two weeks later as a beautiful butterfly. While it can be considered no different from any other counting book and one that teaches the days of the week, it is made special by the ingenuity of the design of the book.

It is difficult not to notice the hole in each page as the caterpillar literally worms its way through the pages of the book or the pages which increase in length as the food items increase. Not only can kids put their finger into the hole that the caterpillar makes through the food he eats, they can have fun counting the unusual food it eats each day as well.  As we follow this unusual caterpillar through his insatiable appetite we are not too surprised by the stomachache but the magical butterfly that appears from the cocoon makes following the journey of the caterpillar a somewhat satisfying experience.

My kids enjoyed the book when I read it to them when they were 2, and enjoyed when I read it to them a year later and now, they still enjoy it even though they know the story very very well! Definitely a must have!

What do I recommend this book for? To teach:

• 
  
  numbers


• 
  
  days of the week


• 
  
  cause and consequence


• 
  
  life cycle (although you might want to read why the caterpillar emerged from a cocoon and not a chrysalis here)

It just happened that one day, I was wondering what I could do to check my children's understanding of the books we read. It wasn't like I planned it or was thinking too hard about it, but I naturally asked questions as I read the book. Now we call it "Question time!" and they love to play this after each book we read. Knowing that there is a "Question time" segment after we say the end makes the experience of the book last longer as well as acts as an incentive so that they pay close attention as the story is read because they never now what the question will be. :)

Here are some questions and activities we did after reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar .

1. 
   
   What are some of the food the caterpillar ate?


2. 
   
   Why do you think it ate so much?


3. 
   
   Why do you think he had a stomach-ache?


4. 
   
   How do you think the caterpillar felt before he got into his cocoon?


5. 
   
   How long was the caterpillar in the cocoon?


6. 
   
   Let's see if we can remember what the caterpillar ate on  Monday...etc


7. 
   
   Let's use our fingers and say the days of the week.


8. 
   
   Look at a calendar and point out the days


9. 
   
   When watching cartoons, write the days a particular cartoon is shown on the calendar. So the kid can identify with days.


10. 
    
    Got a book on animals and their young.


11. 
    
    Got a book- Frogs by Gail Gibbons - to show that different animals have different lifecycles. (This I did when they were a little older)


12. 
    
    We tried to see how a caterpillar would grow into a butterfly - but it was too tedious and the kids lost interest after a week. So I'll keep this field experiement for when they a little older and can truly appreciate the meaning of delayed gratification. We put the caterpillar back into the wild and hopefully it survived to become a beautiful butterfly.

Happy Reading!!!