A Very Hungry Caterpillar Activity: Caterpillar to Butterfly with Play Dough

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This week we are all about The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

A few days ago we made some homemade play dough, which today we were very happy to turn into a caterpillar which then “turned” into a butterfly!

For this little craft you will need some play dough (grab our homemade playdough recipe here) and some kids! We also got our extremely well used The Very Hungry Caterpillar book out for color reference 🙂

While making the caterpillar we talked about how it was an egg and now a very hungry caterpillar that ate all the food! I also asked the boys what was their favorite food to eat, which resulted in the “berries” being pointed at with exclamations about the hole in said strawberry.
Just look at those little hands using the pincers for fine motor skills!

For the body of our caterpillar we rolled little balls and flattened a bit to get the “look”. My 2 year old however, was more interested in dissecting the caterpillar than making it. We used the rest of the play dough to make a pretty butterfly, once again I talked about how the very full caterpillar made a cocoon and then changed into a butterfly. My 4 year old enjoyed adding all the little color rolled balls. The 2 year old had finished with his dissecting and came around to appreciate the pretty butterfly. It lasted about 30 minutes before he took it apart and packed the now mixed play dough into the containers for storage.

We had fun making the caterpillar and butterfly as well as talking about the life cycle and all the foods that were eaten 🙂

Do your little ones love the very hungry caterpillar book too?