This week we have been reading The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carl.   Most of the children were familiar with the story, and they were enthusiastic about all the food the caterpillar eats.   As part of our PSHE, we tried lots of different fruits.  The children selected their fruit and threaded it onto a kebab stick.  During the activity, the children had an opportunity to count beyond five and compare the various fruits by asking questions such as: What can you see?  What do you notice?  How are they the same/different?  They talked about the taste and texture and used vocabulary like sour, sweet, juicy, hard and soft. We continued to use vocabulary to compare the size, colour and weight of the different fruits.  

As we talked about the colours of the various fruits, this led to talking about colour mixing. Throughout the week, the children have had an opportunity to explore mixing primary colours (red, blue, yellow). Some children explored making and mixing the paint in a palette, whilst others became engrossed in mixing the colours on their paper.

As we continued to read the story, we talked about how the caterpillar changes, what he ate, why he got big (he ate lots, so he could have energy to make a chrysalis) and how long it takes for the caterpillar to transform into a butterfly (14 sleeps).  

We had a delivery of five real caterpillars to help the children understand the changes that happen. We will be observing and talking about the changes over the next few weeks.