One of the benefits to growing a lot of our own produce here is that we have lots of beasties to then explore for Forest school and Outdoor Learning sessions!
This week we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Definitely one of those book up there on the childhood bests list!!
We then went to hunt for caterpillars!! The veg garden did not disappoint with plenty of juicy green cabbage white caterpillars!
But we also found lots of other things to explore. Caterpillar eggs and teeny tiny just hatched caterpillars!
We found all sorts of foods to see which our caterpillars liked to eat. We picked them from the trees and bushes around the gardens or found them hidden (for example the orange!) We chopped them up, tried them ourselves, and placed them in the containers. We only found the foods that didn’t give the Very hungry Caterpillar a tummy ache!
Then while the caterpillars got to explore their new food sources we made our own caterpillars out of willow!
We used secateurs to snip lengths of green willow. We peeled the bark off the willow lengths. Then we rolled the slightly wet slimy feeling willow lengths in our warm hands to dry them.
We used felt pens to colour and add features to our caterpillars!
