Very Hungry Caterpillar sensory bin

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a fabulous book for retelling.  

It has progression of numbers, the days of the week, it's all about food, and it has a miraculous ending.  Every syllable of every word is right where it belongs.  It just invites retelling. 

How about we retell the story with a sensory bin.

The protagonist of our story is a caterpillar.

I have one that came with a huge board book that I bought a few years ago.  

Moving on with the story: the caterpillar eats food.  So, our caterpillar needs food.

I did a couple of different things.  First, I raided our play kitchen and borrowed toy food from friendly teachers. 

That worked absolutely fine - but the food did not look like Eric Carle's food.  And the kids said that it did not have holes in it. 

Rocks and mode podge to the rescue. 

My hungry caterpillar has the "right" food to eat. No holes in the rocks - but we do have holes in the pictures. 

Now the caterpillar can grow and grow until he becomes a great big caterpillar. 

Jump to the end of the story:  we need a butterfly. 

I just realized that I missed a crucial step in the story and the life cycle of the butterfly.  The cocoon.  (The only thing that I do not like about The Very Hungry Caterpillar is that Eric Carle wrote "cocoon" instead of "chrysalis".)

Before next butterfly season in kindergarten, I need to make a tiny caterpillar and a cocoon.  

Check out Anna's Resources for Young Learners and Our Kiwi Homeschool for printables.

As well as lots of retelling (even without different size caterpillars and a cocoon), the kids were busy with the usual sensory bin scooping and pouring and burying.

sensory bin ingredients

base: mostly black beans with a few green lentils

brightly coloured dishes (thrift store)

Very Hungry Caterpillar bucket (Target dollar bins a couple of years ago)

butterfly magnifying glasses

a couple of fabric leaves

a couple of fabric flowers 

This time, I didn't include any scoops or spoons.

I wanted the kids to be totally hands on with the bin. 

I added the butterfly magnifying glasses because I had them in my stash of things that kindergarten teachers tend to buy.  I had no clue what the kids would choose to do with them.

Seems that turned into butterfly glasses, 

or grew into flowers. 

That works, the beautiful butterfly will need to go to the flower pot for a nectar feast.