The Preschool children have been learning about caterpillars for the past couple of weeks. The educators set up a provocation using the book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. In the provocation there was the book, pretend food, a cocoon, and a caterpillar that the children can hold with their hands. Several children immediately began making connections between the illustrations in the book and the props. Looking at the provocation, Lilya said to Merline, “look Merline this a cocoon home”. It seemed as though Lilya remembered new vocabulary that they learned the week before. Then Merline watched Oliver tell the story to Hudson using the pictures in the book. The two of them pretended to be hungry caterpillars. This activity combined the book and props, leading to more questions and curiosities about caterpillars.
Following the children’s interests in caterpillars the educators thought it would be a good idea to set up a caterpillar activity. The supplies that were used for this activity were pompoms, googly eyes, artificial leaves, green paper, and glue. First the preschool children had to glue the leaf on the green paper. Then they chose four pom poms for the body of the caterpillar and one big pom pom for the head. Next, they had to choose two googly eyes to put on the big pom pom. After they had all their materials they could start dipping the pom poms and googly eyes in the glue. During this activity Rumi said to Nicole “I want my caterpillar to have a lot of colours”. Then Nicole watched Lilya gently dip the googly eyes in the glue and carefully place them on her big pom pom. Lily Rose had a different idea, she added multiple pom poms to her picture to make the caterpillar's body. As Nicole was watching her, she took the pom poms and started to place them in a circle on the paper. This activity fostered their creative and inspired the preschool children to look for caterpillars at the centre.
