The Very Hungry Caterpillar

We LOVE playgroup crafts!

Tomorrow we are reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar at playgroup and found LOTS of fun craft ideas on Pinterest to try out.  I opted to try two of them - both with paint, but one using your toddler's hands, and the other your toddler's feet.  

Marc and I tried out the hand craft first - creating a caterpillar out of Marc's hands.  He had a lot fun painting his hand and stamping the page - but this was very mom-intensive to keep it from getting too messy.. perhaps I wouldn't have been too worried about the paint if I put down newspapers or something to protect the floor.

We thought this caterpillar was SUPER cute.. even though Marc got over-zealous with the hand stamping and created a hump-back caterpillar.  Oh well, we still love it!

Verdict: This craft is possible to replicate at playgroup - but will need some serious guidance from adults. It is quick and a fun way to remember the story.

The Caterpillar Foot craft was a little more involved..

Marc laughed as I tickled his tows with the paint brush - and didn't quite understand what was going on when we placed his toes on the paper (there was a lot of paint, so we made several caterpillars). I definitely could have explained what we were doing better to him!  Marc really enjoyed this- and wanted to do it to his baby sister, Emmalyn, as well.. :) She definitely had no clue what was going on!

While we waited for the toe caterpillars to dry, Marc and I had fun painting leaves and fruit for the caterpillars to eat. 

Then I helped him paint the faces and feet on the caterpillars...

...and we continued to paint while we let it all dry.

Then I let him practice cutting while I cut out the caterpillars, fruit and leaves - pulled out the hole punch and then put it all together on another piece of paper.

Verdict: This craft was way too involved for a toddler - so finding a simpler way to reproduce it at playgroup will be necessary.  Having paper with fruit or leaves already on it to let the kids color and then using paint or a stamp to put the toes on and draw the face and feet would make it do-able.  

Looking forward to sharing this one tomorrow!