We kicked off the summer with two weeks of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. It was a lot of fun to really focus on one story for that long, and we did a ton of different activities related to it. If you’re looking for some activities to keep your preschoolers busy as we come to summer’s end (is that crazy or what?!), here are some of the activities we did:

:: Raising Butterflies in Our Own Butterfly Garden from Insect Lore

:: The Very Hungry Caterpillar on YouTube

:: Felt Board Pieces from DLTK
I printed the pieces out and colored them and then and laminated them with contact paper and stuck a small magnet to the back to use one our magnetic dry erase board. The girls loved it, and I’ve been meaning to make some other sets for them as well!

:: Anatomy and Life Cycle of a Caterpillar -> Butterfly from Enchanted Learning
This is definitely an activity for older children, but Pumpkin Doodle loves animal facts, and it was right up her alley.

:: Printable Book from Hubbard’s Cubbard

:: Coloring Pages from The Children’s Butterfly Site

:: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cupcake Cake (inspired by this non-wreck on Cake Wrecks)

:: “Butterfly” Search on Flickr

:: Wikipedia’s Butterfly Article

Even though these activities kept us busy for two weeks, we really just scratched the surface of the ideas out there. Here are some more sites for finding even more activities:

:: Teaching Heart

:: Insect Lore

:: The Virtual Vine

:: Eric Carle’s Official Site

Enjoy!