The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities for Toddlers

I love book extension activities which meant I set out to create and find other The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities for Toddlers. I wanted it to be fun, resourceful, and educational with a purpose. For us, that meant incorporating fine motor skills and upcycling some old pouch caps that we have collected over a period of time. In the end, we came up with a fun craft that also goes through a metamorphosis like the caterpillar in the story.

While I should have posted this activity a long time ago, it was only fitting to join in Eric Carle’s birthday celebration by posting it now! All you need to complete this activity is the book, old pouch caps or beads, 3 or 4 pipe cleaners, and some fun play time together!The reason I chose to use pouch caps is because they are something that I could re-use instead of buy. However, beads will also do the trick and are probably easier to form. My daughter loves this activity because she loved that it correlated to the book and she adores butterflies so to see it take shape was a fun experience for her.

While she is the one who threaded them, I had pre-counted them for her and I put the final butterfly together (I used a fourth pip cleaner to accomplish this, but especially if using beads, that’s probably unnecessary). The caps easily stack and bend together, but to keep the top and bottoms ones in place, all we did was bend part of the pipe cleaner back into the lids.

For more great The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities for Toddlers specifically, check out some of these that I found for you!

• Pasta bead caterpillar from Powerful Mothering.
• Feed the Caterpillar from Artsy Momma.
• Caterpillar threading and lacing game from Here Come the Girls.
• Toe Print Caterpillars from Sassy Dealz

Kara Carrero

Kara is an author and advocate for positive, grace-filled parenting. She is homeschooler to her 5 children living on a farm in New England. She believes in creative educational approaches to help kids dive deeper into a rich learning experience and has her degree in Secondary Education & Adolescent Childhood Development. She is passionate about connecting with and helping other parents on their journey to raise awesome kids!