Hungry Caterpillar activity...

   

I have been making a Hungry Caterpillar activity at work, to put in a healthy eating topic box, for our visually impaired children.
It works well, so I will be making another one, to accompany a braille version of the book as well.

 I had seen a couple of similar resources online made by other bloggers, but needed to adapt mine for use with VI children. One lady, whose name I cannot now recall, used what looked like laminate pictures of the fruit and foods. They could be velcro attached to the caterpillar body as you read along with the story.
Ideal of course for sighted children and a good idea.

Then Id seen a set of beautifully made felt caterpillar foods at
http://tearosehome.blogspot.com/2011/04/little-hungry-catapillar-felt-food.html
so I had two very good examples to think about, when I started to plan one for our children to use.

I have used velcro accepting fabric for the caterpillar but sliced him along the centre, so that all the goodies can be tucked into him, as he 'eats' them.
Ive used felt for part of his eyes, large french knots for his nostrils and carpet thread, stitch wrapped, for his feelers.

I used different sized plates to shape his head and body and I hand stitched all the pieces together, simply because I enjoy hand stitching, but .....dont tell work cos the sewing machine would have meant it got done faster lol

This shows the centre line opening and the token legs stitched beneath the body at each end.

... and this is the under side with legs in position.

The fruit is tactile and a simple flat design with a hole or small area cut out of it.
But the foods are 3D, again with different tactile textures and a white felt circle to suggest eaten areas.

I'm not altogether happy with the foods, and may well remake the ice cream at least. Although it will work for what most of our children need, it doesnt look that great...yet lol Actually I dont like the salami either, must find something different to the fun foam Ive used for that.

There are squishy balls within the fleece wadding of the cherry pie for little fingers to fondle.

I probably should have used the same symbol to suggest eaten areas on both fruit and foods, so it will be interesting to see which the children prefer, in use.

I could make a pupae bag for the kids to roll the caterpillar up in .. for him to later emerge from .....though of course...then Id need to make him wings and if I keep the scale................he'd need to be about 6' wide! Hmm....maybe not...that needs more thought!

You cant help but smile when you look at these fragile looking little flowers, as they stand erect with their toes in the snow.

  ... and thankfully, the snow has gone and the flowers are now fully 'abloom....Come On Spring!