Pistes d'exploration

Design a class chart depicting the life cycle of a caterpillar.

Write a list of the foods (and the quantities) you would like to eat over the course of a week.

Invent a game using cards printed with the days of the week and the numerals 1-7. Match and sequence the cards.

Practise the vocabulary: numbers, days of the week, foods.

Prior to reading, guess what the caterpillar will eat and what it will become.

Retell the story using word cards printed with the days of the week, and realia (foods) brought from home.

Draw a picture illustrating the transformation of an egg to caterpillar, cocoon and finally, butterfly. Add labels.

Construct and play a BINGO game that uses food words and pictures.

How a Caterpillar Grows Into a Butterfly, Farm, TheButterfly, Caterpillars: Find, Identify, Raise Your Own

Mots-clés

Picture book , butterflies , caterpillars , changes , days of the week , illustrations (collage) , life cycles , metamorphosis

Commentaire descriptif

First published in 1969, this humorous book about a hungry caterpillar who eats his way through the days of the week—and pages of the book—by devouring different types of food, from fruit to Swiss cheese to chocolate and ice cream, is a must for beginning readers. It creatively spurs the development of language and the imagination. Strikingly bold illustrations—cut and layered collages, overprinted with ink, crayon, and tempura—and playful text in large clear font tell nature’s miraculous story of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, starting with its humble beginnings as a little egg on a leaf. The pages grow in size as the week progresses, while the caterpillar, increasing his food intake, fattens up and gets a stomach ache, a subtle message to children that fruit and vegetables are healthier choices. Suitable for story time or independent reading, this book holds up to repeated readings, with cross-curricular uses in the classroom. Use it to teach sequencing, counting and the days of the week, and for thematic units on healthy eating or the life cycle of a butterfly.