The Very Hungry Caterpillar Nature Craft

If your little ones love The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, then they will adore this Hungry Caterpillar nature craft. It will get them recreating the beautiful caterpillar using natural materials right outside in their backyard.

What better way to recreate the character than using the very thing that makes his tummy feel better in the story – leaves!

This Hungry Caterpillar craft builds:

• Scissor skills
• Problem-solving skills
• Fine motor skills
• Shape recognition
• Color recognition
• Creativity

It’s also incredibly fun and the colors in the leaves complement the collage style of Eric Carle perfectly. It’s hard to believe the end product isn’t the artwork itself!

Be sure to read the storybook to your child before you do the activity together. It’s such a lovely way to introduce the activity.

Please note that the Hungry Caterpillar Nature Craft is fan creation only and not official Hungry Caterpillar artwork. Just a fun way to celebrate the wonderful book!

Hungry Caterpillar Nature craft materials

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• The Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle
• Scissors
• Hole punch (for fruit)
• Leaves – lots and lots of leaves the same colors as the caterpillar. You’ll need red, yellow, green and brown. You can use purple flowers too for above the head.

How to set up the Hungry Caterpillar nature craft

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1. Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar storybook in the garden together.
2. Collect some leaves with your children. Be sure to collect all the colors you need. Enjoy this time out in nature. Don’t rush it.
3.  Using the book as a guide cut out the segments of the caterpillar using leaves.  Body segments, head segment, feet, eyes and nose.
4. If your children are too little for this activity, you can cut the segments up and have a Very Hungry Caterpillar invitation to play ready to go. 
5. Next, ask your children to look at the picture book cover and see if they can recreate the caterpillar using the leaf segments. Remind them that they need to look at each segment separately and how and where it fits with the other shapes. 
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8. They’ll enjoy moving the shapes around, testing and problem solving to create the caterpillar just like the one on the cover. Let them try themselves and if they ask for help, do it together.  It can be challenging for little ones.
9. Want to extend on this activity? Make some of the fruit in the book too. We had fun making pears and strawberries, then using a hole punch to add the part where the caterpillar munched. The girls ended up telling parts of the story using the leaf fruit. It was adorable!
10. End the activity by reading the book again and if you’re really keen, see if you can make a butterfly using the natural materials in your garden too.

Time to pull The Very Hungry Caterpillar picture book out of the bookshelf and enjoy it in a totally unique way – outside sitting with and then crafting with nature. What better way to enjoy a relaxing afternoon!

See all out other beautiful nature crafts.