The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I love to read and made a profession of teaching children to read so it was only fitting that as soon as I heard that the Jumpstart Program marked October 8th as the Read for the Record Day I would rally the mom troops and take part. The goal was to break the world record for the most people reading the same book on the same day.

Bekah, who also loves to read and has kids who adore books, and I made a few plans and marked our calendars for the occasion. Jumpstart chose The Very Hungry Caterpillar as the book to read to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its publication.
Unfortunately the day of the big event Bekah had a horrible tooth ache and had to run to the dentist (yuck!).

Ethan, Ava (Bekah's daughter), and I carried out our plan! We had a blast. We read the book a few times and talked about which food the Caterpillar ate was our favorite. Of course we read the book on Ethan's Very Hungry Caterpillar Bed Roll Grandma made.

Then we made paper towel roll caterpillars, Ava made the very tiny newly hatched caterpillar and Ethan made the not so little anymore caterpillar.





We also inked up our fingers to make fingerprint caterpillars. The kids loved the crafts.





We enjoyed kid skewered Hungry Caterpillar fruit kabobs for our snack. Yumm!






We used the cute Hungry Caterpillar ring game Cousins gave Avery as a Very Hungry Caterpillar ring toss contest. Ethan really got in to throwing the rings and Ava was determined to get at least one fruit shaped ring on the caterpillar.

Finally, we watched The Very Hungry Caterpillar movie and a short interview from Eric Carle, the book's author and illustrator, about the inspiration for and making of the book.

It was fun to put my old teacher brain to good use again and I can't wait for next year's Read for the Record Day. Ava and Bekah will be moved to Mississippi so we'll miss having them to read with...Bekah proposed a Web Cam reading day..sounds great to us!