Literature Based Learning: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Literature Based Learning: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
 

Literature-based Learning is a strategy that uses a book as the basis to teach. This strategy is adopted as firstly, it encourages the love for reading from a young age. Reading is a very important part of the learning process.

Secondly, books explore different themes and thus would be a good resource for children to construct knowledge. 

Literature based learning follows the principle that by using one text, one can teach English vocabulary, scientific concept, mathematics, art and craft and even your own mother tongue. Literature based learning can be differentiate to suit the needs of the learner. As I have 3 children, I often have to create different levels of challenging material for each child. But I always enjoy the challenge of using a book and creating activities around it. It’s fun for me and the kids. 

Activity 1: Objective- Number Recognition, Counting and Number Line
(Age 1 -2 )

Materials: These materials are easily printed out, laminated and a magnetic tape is stuck at the back of the numbers to make them stick on the magnetic board. Let me try to make what I have done printable on this blog.

You can get your child to rearrange the number accordingly or get them to fill in the missing numbers.

This is a more guided activity where your child can see the example above and rearrange another set of numbers of their own. 

Testing your child to see if he/she has learnt. Leave the number line as a point of reference for your child. 

Activity 2: Objective- Recognizing Days of the week
(Age 1 -2 )

Teach your child the days of the week and its sequencing. 

 Activity 3: Objective- Word recognition
(Age 1 -2 )

Input: Recognizing Keywords from "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"

 

Output: Can your child match the word to its image?

Activity 4: Objective- Memory Game / Sibling Bonding Time
(Age 1 and above)

Material: The cards consist of a pair of all the fruit cards.

The 3 children will take turns to flip the cards and look for matching fruits. 

It's fun to see how they interact and with these one simple set of material, they can have lots of fun repeatedly. 

To make things more exciting, you may get the older children to match not just the fruit cards but also the word cards. This is to increase the level of challenge for your older children. I personally believe in differentiated learning where one set of material can be used in many ways to create different level of challenges for different ability kids. 

Activity 5: Objective- Art and Craft
(Age 1 and above)

This caterpillar is made by one of my friend which my children really found very interesting. The long red straw is connected to the caterpillar. 

As you push and pull the red straw, watch the caterpillar move. 

This is the layout of this caterpillar Art and Craft.

Activity 6: Objective- Maths for Preschoolers

(Age 3-4)

You can test your child by asking your child to colour either the long or short caterpillars in the boxes. 

Use the Story to teach Addition. This activity is appropriate for children age 3-4. 

Not sure if you have notice, but the worksheet started out with pictorial guides and it gradually encourages the child to count on his/her own. Remember, always guide your child from the very start so he/she will not be intimidated by the activity but instead there is always a point of reference. This is will help to build more confidence in your child.

Activity 8: Objective- Learning the Life Cycle of a Butterfly

(Age 5-7)

Teaching the life cycle of a butterfly.

Giving the child the picture and words and challenging him to create the life cycle of a butterfly. 

Activity 9: From Caterpillars to Butterflies

As part of learning about the life cycle of a butterfly, I bought these caterpillar kits so that the children have a chance to observe what the caterpillars do and how they turn into a cocoon and finally into a butterfly. My 2 younger children were really lucky because they managed to watch the whole process of how 3 caterpillars were molting and how they were turning into a cocoon.

We have to constantly observe the cocoon and finally one morning, the cocoon started stirring and we saw how the butterfly broke out of its cocoon. 

Other than the fact that the children got to observe the life cycle of the butterfly, looking after these caterpillars actually encouraged a sense of responsibility in the children as well as they had to take on the responsibility of changing fresh leaves for the caterpillar to eat.


Activity 10: Mandarin
I always try to look for a mandarin book on the topic that we are doing so that the children have a chance not only to learn the topic in English but also in our mother tongue language.

Activity 11: Creating a story
This is an activity carried out as a task in school. I find this very interesting and you can even get the child to write his/her own story. 

Natalie used a green bean as the egg. 

Pasta as the caterpillar.

Pasta as a pupa.

Pasta as a chrysalis.

Pasta as a butterfly.