Searched one of my go-to blogs for books and projects the other day after we got the caterpillar and found a very simple activity that I thought Sam would be all over.
After dinner tonight Chris did pj duty so I could cut out some leafs and get the other things that we needed. It took me about five minutes to put this whole activity together.
The idea is to have a leaf of every color that you have caterpillars. Put numbers on the leaves and match that number to the number of caterpillars that are that same color. I also found a big bag of beads so that we could add beads to our caterpillars for even more color matching fun!
Avery sat on my lap while we were making some of the caterpillars, which is a very difficult word for an 18 month old to say! But it was a good chance for me to point out colors and work with her a bit on that too.
Sam had a great time with this activity and since I have been trying to get her to recognize her number symbols that was an added bonus practice that we got in tonight.
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The Nitty Gritty!
Skills worked on tonight with this activity:
- color matching
- counting
- number recognition
- hand-eye coordination
But the key for me was talking with Sam about caterpillars. I showed her a picture of what our caterpillar will grow up to look like. Then we talked about why we were putting our little bead caterpillars on leaves, why there were leaves in our caterpillar home and where we might find other caterpillars outside. Simple ideas but for Sam it is putting the bigger picture together for her.
what cute caterpillars :) this is a favorite still in our house.
thanks for saying my little old blog was a go to blog :) your my go to for all things nature and green :)
Posted by: Nature Tales and Trails | 07/27/2011 at 07:51 PM
Cute! Do you know the book, 'Clara Caterpillar'? We recently checked it out of the library and loved it! Great for language and early literacy as well as butterfly life cycles, and even social skills, all rolled into one.
Posted by: Mama Pea Pod | 07/28/2011 at 08:41 PM