The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Very Hungry Caterpillar teaches kids the importance of healthy eating.

One sunny day, a caterpillar pops out of an egg. He is very hungry and begins searching for food. The tiny, ravenous caterpillar starts eating ‘anytime’ foods; apple, pear, plums, strawberries and oranges. When he finds some ‘sometimes’ food he becomes greedy and doesn’t’ listen to his internal cues of fullness and gobbles up chocolate cake, ice cream, pickle, salami, lollipop, cherry pie, sausage, watermelon and cupcake. That night he has a stomach ache! He feels better again the next day when he eats more anytime food, a nice green leaf.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is now ready to prepare itself for the chrysalis stage, and afterward emerges as a beautiful butterfly.

After a few reading of this book to Brie Boy + Baby Bell, they started to have lots of fun making the noise of the caterpillar getting the tummy ache and joined in with the chant of “but he was still hungry.”

The style of the book is fun and the author has cut holes in the centre of each piece of food making it look as if the caterpillar really has munched it’s way through it. The illustrations show the different colours and different shape of foods.

While The Very Hungry Caterpillar teaches that fruit and vegetables is the best food for us to eat and we can’t eat chocolate and ice cream, it has other side benefits of teaching the days of the week, counting and an introduction to science/biology when the little caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly.

Other Reviews
I read all the reviews on The Very Hungry Caterpillar on Amazon and Dooyoo and picked up these comments from kids, teachers and mums to show how well the message of the book works.

“So on Saturday, he eats a bunch, and I mean a BUNCH of junk and gets sick that evening. No wonder! Mixing salami with a lollipop, cake, ice cream and watermelon just doesn’t make for a great outcome. But on Sunday, he eats another green leaf and feels much better. I think that says a lot about how important it is to eat good things.”
Child

“I have been teaching 3-5 year olds for seven years, and they love this book. They ask me to read this book every day. We have made art projects to go along with it as well as food experiences. The children learn the days of the week, they learn foods that are good for you and foods that are not.”
Teacher

“My favourite pages has to be when the little caterpillar eats through all the goodies and has a very sad look on his face only to become happier again when he eats the leaf the next day. Something important to teach children who pester you with demands of treats all day. You can turn round and say that the caterpillar was much healthier after eating fruit than cake.”
Mum

“While children enjoy laughing out loud to the caterpillar’s eating habits, they are able to learn the importance of healthy eating.”
Teacher

“And there’s usually a life lesson to be learned in these sweet little books (like eating too much cake and candy can give you a TUMMY ACHE!)”
Mum

Activity Ideas

Questions to ask

Which foods did the caterpillar eat that helped him to grow?
Which foods made the caterpillar feel sick?
Why did these foods make him feel sick and not the other foods?
Why did he feel better when he ate the green leaf?

Butterfly Dinners
At dinner pretend to transform your kids into “kidderpillars.” They have to pretend to be the very hungry caterpillar who eats his way through dinner to emerge as a butterfly. Once they have eaten their dinner they can fly off like a butterfly.

Caterpillar Dinner Art
With your child create a caterpillar face with a paperplate, pipecleanser and pencils. Then every time your child finishes their dinner, they can draw a piece of food on a paperplate and add to the caterpillar body.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Fruit Salad
Help build up child’s sequencing and memory skills with remembering what fruit the caterpillar ate and make a fruit salad with them.

1 Apple, deseeded and cut into bite-sized pieces
2 Pears, deseeded and cut into bite-sized pieces
3 Plums, deseeded and cut into bite-sized pieces
4 Strawberries, hulled and cut into halve
5 Oranges, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces
Mint leaves (optional)

Mix fruit and mint together and eat.

Healthier choices
Talk to your child that some foods are healthier choices than others. Describe these as anytime and sometimes food.

Anytime food are foods that are good to eat almost anytime. They are the healthiest ones, ie fruit and vegetables.
Sometimes foods aren’t off-limits, but they shouldn’t be eaten every day. At most, eat them several times a week, ie cake, icecream.
You can also introduce Once-in-a-while foods. These are the least healthy and the most likely to cause weight problems, especially you eat them all the time, ie chips, donuts.

‘Green’ Vegetables
Discuss that the caterpillar eats green leaves, but we eat green vegetables. Name all the green vegetables you can with your child; spinach, broccoli, cabbage, brussel sprouts, peas, celery, beans, zucchini, asparagus, cucumbers, capsicum, lettuce, bok choy.

You can suggest that you include some of the green vegetables you talked about in tonight’s dinner.