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. 

Stimulating the Sense of Touch- Activity 5

Baby Massage

The human touch is amazing. It is believed that human touch such as a hugs can lower levels of stress hormones.For your baby, a full body massage will help your baby give your baby a sense of security. It also helps your baby to relax and sleep better. In fact, when you are massaging your baby, you are stimulating your child's central nervous system. I enjoyed giving daily massages to my babies as I see it as bonding time.  

Let me share some simple steps to massage your baby. Usually, I massage my baby at night on my bed to help the baby sleep better and for longer hours. You can massage your baby with baby oil/ baby lotion or simply just with nothing. The length of the time of the massage is also up to you. 

Back

First, start with the back. Lie your baby on his/her tummy. Massage the back in a circular motion. It helps to relax the body and helps improve blood circulation as your baby lies on his/her back most of the time. 

Stroke the baby's back from side to side and then up and down. 

Gently rub down the spine in one motion. Repeat this several times. Next, follow the spine and press down gently in a tapping motion. 

Once the back is done, turn your baby to face you. 

Hands and fingers

Wrap your palm around your baby's wrist. Gently move your palm upwards. When doing this action, you are actually moving the blood towards the heart and this will make your child more energetic. Next, gently move your palm downwards towards the wrist, moving the blood away from the heart. This action will calm the child down.So if you massaging your baby to help with better sleep, remember to do the downwards motion more often. You can also stroke the arms up and down. 

To massage the fingers.

First, use three of your fingers to grab the end of a baby finger, grip the finger and then move towards the tip. Repeat this 3 times. Next, press along the fingers gently. Finally, shake the little finger. Repeat these steps with other fingers. 

Once you are done with one hand, move on to the next. 

Legs and feet 

Doing the legs and feet is like doing the hands and fingers. 

Hold your baby's heel and wrap one of your hand around it. Move your hand up and down, gently squeezing the leg as you move along. 

Next, hold on to your baby's feet. Use three of your fingers to grab the end of the baby toe, grip the toe and move towards the tip of the toe. Repeat this 3 times. Next, press along the toe gently. Finally, gently shake the toe.

Chest and tummy

Massage the chest in a circular motion. Then stroke the baby's chest from side to side and then up and down.

With your fingertips, massage the baby's tummy in a circular motion. Then move your fingertip to below your baby's belly button and massage in a circular motion. Move only in clockwise for this part of the body as it is the natural path of digestion. Sometimes, you may feel something solid and long, it could be your baby's motion.

Head and face
Use the sides of your index finger, place them at the tip of the baby's eyebrow and move your finger outward from the center. Assert a little pressure. Repeat this several times.

Repeat the motion below the eye. Feel for the edge of the eye socket.

Use your thumb to massage your baby's cheek, stroking outwards from the center.

Massage your baby and discover where your baby likes you to massage. Have fun.

Sense of touch- Activity 4

Sand Sensory Play

Many parent frown on their kids playing sand as they deem it to be dirty and difficult to clean up afterwards. 

However, I love to bring my children to beaches or even to the nearby playground to just play with sand. My kids started playing sand when they are about 10 months old. Old enough to sit and stand. Parents just have to make sure your child doesn't eat the sand. 

Not all the kids will like sand at first as they are used to concrete grounds and some children maybe afraid to even stand on sand due to the different texture. Encourage your child by placing some of his/her favourite toy some distance away and get your child to try and reach for it. Or you can try burying the toys slightly so that your child will have the incentive to touch and brush away the sand to get the toy. 

There are in fact some benefits for sand playing. 

First of all, it develops the sense of touch and also promotes physical development. Your child would practice gross motor skills by digging, pouring and scooping the sand. Also, fine motor skills and eye hand coordination is at work when your child learns to manipulate the sand toys.  

Secondly, sand play encourages creativity and imagination. There is no limits to what you can create with sand. You can cook, dig wells, build volcanoes, dig tunnels or roads. With some sand toys, you can build sand castles and any other items with your child. When your child is too young to build, build it for your child and see what your child does. Most of the time, they will either step on it or sweep it to destroy it before giving you a grin.

Thirdly, sand play at the playground promotes social interaction. As your child grows older, you will see your child approaching other children with other sand toys and they will actually play cooperatively to build something or they may just exchange their sand toys. This is where your child can pick up social skills such as how to approach another child, how to share, how to compromise or negotiate. Remember, as parents, try not to interfere too much when your child is at play at the playground. Give him the opportunity to approach others and to communicate what he wants. Even though your child may not be able to speak, your child and the other child will be able to reach a level of understanding. 

Sense of touch- Activity 3

Fruits and vegetables

Busy cooking dinner or going to cut fruits after dinner? Get your baby involved, clean the skin of the fruits of vegetables and allow your child to touch them. Teach them the name of the fruit/vegetables and describe the texture. 

You can even cut the fruit to allow the baby to smell it or even taste it.

Stimulating Sense of Touch- Activity 2

What's in the bag?

Get a clean cloth bag. 

Look for different items of different materials to put into the bag. 

Get your child to put his/her hand into the bag to feel for things. Do allow your child to pull out the item to see what it is. You will be surprised that your baby will love this simple game. It stimulate a different part of the brain as your child is interpreting through only the sense of touch, instead of sense of sight first. 

Depending on the age of your child, you can choose different items of different materials to put into the bag. For younger children, bigger items would be better. For older children, you can choose to put in smaller items and in fact, get them to guess what's inside the bag. My older children still love to play this game. 

Suggested items: 

For younger children, 

• Plastic bottles ( perhaps yakult bottle)
• sponge
• a piece of plastic bags cut into a square
• comb
• socks( rolled into a ball) 
• spoons

For older children 

• coins
• pencils
• toothpicks
• erasers
• cotton balls

Simply look around you and i'm sure you can find lots of things to put inside your little bag. 

Stimulating the sense of touch- Activity 1

Stimulating the sense of touch is important to a baby as sensory experiences help to develop the cell connections in the brain. This is how your baby learns. A newborn infant has about 100 billion brain cells. Playing with your baby helps your baby to connect the neutrons.

So what can you do to help your baby make those connections? You can do it through the sense of touch. This is how a baby learns. Basically, you will realise that your baby will look at a thing(perhaps a toy) and he will naturally reach out to them to touch them, then smell or shake them. Finally, your baby will put that thing in his/her mouth to try and taste it. This is perfectly normal. This is how your baby learns through his/her 5 senses.

So for the sense of touch, you can collect items of different materials for your baby to felt. Of course, there are many touch books available but still, I prefer to give the kids what I can find around the house.

Activity 1

The following are the different types of materials you can give to your baby:
1 ) Fabric- example: Clean Kitchen cloth / clothings / handkerchief.
2) Plastic- Plastic bags ( Cut a square piece out for safety reasons / plastic bottles )
3) Sandpaper
4)Cotton ( Cotton wool)
5) Fur
6) Metal ( Metal spoon / Metal scrub)
7) Wood ( Wooden Spatula)
8) Silk
9) Sponge

Allow your baby to feel each item one at a time. Encourage your baby to feel as you talk to them about the colours and describe the texture ( e.g. Smooth, rough)

You can explore your own kitchen to look for safe and simple items for your child to play. Remember, you don't always have to buy expensive toys for your child. You have enough items at home for your child to play. Always check to make sure it is safe for your child.

Ways to play with roll manipulative

Ways to play with the Manipulative made of Toilet Rolls

How to make these roll manipulative? click here

1) Teaching 1, 2 , 3 with it.

You can get the child to count and stick the number of rolls together.

Having fun building a number pyramid.

Faith is proud of the number tower that she has built.

2) Teaching multiplication. 

The rolls can make abstract concepts concrete and visual for the child and hence it aids understanding. 

4) Teaching A, B, C
Get your child to form the alphabets. Forming the alphabets will definitely interest kinesthetic and visual learners.

Faith have just finished forming letter A.

3D Letter A. 

Form and re form letters in just a few secs.

Emmanuel is forming the first letter of his name. 

Letter S. With these manipulative stuck in a straight line, you can form different letters in just seconds.
There is no need to stick them one by one. 

5) Creative Play

What I really like about this manipulative is that it one set of materials that can be play in many different ways. This is where your children can let their imagination go wild. 

Christmas Tree

Pyramid

I used this opportunity to teach them about the different triangles. 

Attempting to build a palace.

Emmanuel's Robot. 

Faith, deciding on something as simple as a binoculars. 

And of course, Emmanuel's favourite train. 

2 D Robot. 

Robot. 

These roll manipulative are really simple to make. To learn how to make them, click here.

I really believe in teaching my children to recycle and save the environment. Especially in Singapore where we have limited resources. We have to learn how to maximum the resources that we have. Reducing, reusing, and recycling is a very important part of our lives.

Recyclables can be turned into something really useful and fun for the children. Do look out for more ideas for using recyclables. Will be put up soon.