Our Reception children have had a wonderful time exploring the much-loved story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' by Eric Carle. Our classroom has been full of exciting activities inspired by the story, helping us to develop our literacy, communication, creativity and fine motor skills.

We began by learning to retell the story using a story map, helping us to remember the sequence of events and build our storytelling confidence. The children also enjoyed using a range of story props to act out the story with a friend, bringing the characters and events to life through imaginative play.

One of our favourite activities was tasting some of the foods that the hungry caterpillar ate throughout the story! We carefully looked at each food before tasting it and used lots of exciting adjectives to describe what it looked like and what it tasted like. We discovered some new favourite foods along the way!

In our malleable area, we used dough to make our own caterpillars, strengthening our finger and hand muscles while learning about how the caterpillar grew bigger and fatter as it ate more food in the story. These activities help to develop the fine motor skills needed for writing.

We also followed step-by-step instructions to create our own caterpillar drawings, developing our mark-making skills and learning how to carefully follow a sequence of instructions.

To finish our learning, we imagined we were helping the hungry caterpillar prepare for another feast by writing shopping lists of all the delicious foods he might like to eat. The children worked hard to use their emerging writing skills and phonic knowledge to record their ideas.

It has been a fantastic topic filled with creativity, curiosity and plenty of storytelling. We are so proud of the enthusiasm and wonderful learning our Reception children have shown throughout our work on The Very Hungry Caterpillar!