The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Read Along with Me

We've been fans of the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle for a long time.  (I love the board book version since it gets handled a lot.)  It was even the theme of Sweet Pea's first birthday party (links to those details at the bottom of this post if you're interested.)

(Art Display Board Tutorial here.  No cutting machine required.)

Seriously...what's not to love about a book featuring so many delicious fruits and yummy treats with little holes for little fingers to poke into...not to mention that mommy likes that it teaches numbers, days of the week, and caterpillar/butterfly life cycles...all in a story that's short enough for young attention spans.

We started out by reading the book together.  This was one of the mornings when Sweet Pea and Little Brother were getting along so well that it was almost a preschool distraction (Not complaining...I'll take that any day over teasing and pestering.)

Then we did a C is for Caterpillar Activity. We made potato stamped Very Hungry Caterpillars.

We did this over two days (one to do the painting and another to do the crayon details) and read the same book before our activity both days.

This was one of the rare occassions when I had our activity set up BEFORE starting the book.  I like to tape the kids' paper down to the table using painters' tape to hold is still and give it a border.  I also drew a light C with a pencil as a guide for their stamping.

Little Brother was able to do all his own stamping. 

I helped guide Sweet Pea's hand to make her C and then let her do some extra stamping as she wanted to.

Then we let the paintings dry for the day, and brought them out again the next morning to add details with crayons.  I had them look at the caterpillar on the cover and we looked at the smaller details together one at a time. 

Little Brother did a great job adding the hair and face features.  Sweet Pea just randomly colored.

In the end they were proud of their work.

And I finally thought to have Sweet Pea wear her Very Hungry Caterpillar outfit for day two.

If you're looking for other Very Hungry Caterpillar Ideas, you might like my tutorial for this cupcake-cake.

Or Sweet Pea's Very Hungry Caterpillar Outfit.  You can get the cupcake shirt applique here. The caterpillar skirt applique here. And the skirt tutorial here.

Sweet Pea's birthday is coming up in just a week...any ideas for a super cute and easy birthday theme?  It's only a week away and I have no brilliant ideas.  It's just going to be a little party with our family...nothing huge.  Please share your suggestions or links in the comments.  Hubby thinks we should do something involving books...which would be a great idea for Sweet Pea...but I still don't have any brilliant inspiration for how to carry it out.