Nature Book Activity: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
For this simple nature book activity we used a collection of colourful leaves to re-create illustrations from the classic children’s book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
Natural elements are a fabulous addition to art activities, and the results of this creative illustration activity make a wonderful tool for story retelling too.
RELATED: Check out this collection of 5 fabulous reasons to use nature in your art activities!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Nature Book Activity
Combining art and literacy, our process of creating the illustrations for The Very Hungry Caterpillar was nice and simple and can be adapted to suit any picture book – choose your child’s (or a class) favourite for guaranteed engagement.
- Read: Sit together and read the story aloud. Spend time looking closely at the illustrations. Discuss how you are going to approach making your masterpiece. Will you re-create the illustration from the front cover of the book? Or a favourite page? A character? Or a key scene from the book?
- Collect: Walk around your garden, local park or school playground with your child, searching for flora to create your illustrations. Leaves in a range of colours were perfect for our re-creation. Grasses, flowers, sticks, feathers and small stones may also suit your choice of book.
- Create your masterpiece: Make your creation by cutting the natural materials to size and shape and then placing them onto the illustrations in the book, or onto a separate piece of paper, replicating the pictures.
- Retell and recount: Use your nature creations to retell the story. By ordering the pictures, or manipulating the story pieces, children can retell the story in a fun and engaging way.
