We have been caterpillar and butterfly obsessed around here! We ordered caterpillars from Insect Lore and have loved watching the the caterpillar life cycle in action. We have lots of caterpillar books, but the favorite this year is A Caterpillar Grows Up by Melvin and Gilda Berger.
They love the photos and one of their favorite facts is that caterpillars have 12 eyes. So when we were making our caterpillar puppet the first thing we added were the eyes. We couldn’t find any googly eyes so decided to use 12 buttons instead.
Then the kids practiced their cutting skills and made some leaves for the caterpillar to eat and we used our props to act out the A Caterpillar Life Cycle song I wrote for a science lesson a couple years ago.
Instead of using our hands for the finger play we used the puppet to show how a caterpillar has 12 eyes, chomps on leaves, makes a chrysalis (turn the sock puppet inside out), and then turns into a butterfly. A cute and simple way to have fun over and over again!
For the words and hand motions to this and other caterpillar and butterfly songs check out:
Caterpillar and Butterfly Themed Finger Play Songs
About Megan Sheakoski
[...] you are studying about the caterpillars and butterflies you may want to make our 12 eyed caterpillar puppet to go with the life cycle [...]