All About Caterpillars, Clouds & the letter C

These posts document my teaching adventures in starting up a Reggio-inspired school in my farm shed in January 2023. I’ll share more about how all this came about soon, but in the mean time, I hope you enjoy these moments & learnings.

It was that time of the year when the silk worms start making their appearance (although they are NOT indigenous to South Africa…there is generally someone somewhere who has found/bought/hatched themselves some) and that’s exactly what happened for us. One of the Granny’s of my kiddies asked if we wanted any, and I thought they would work perfectly for us to learn about caterpillars (and other ‘c’ or Clever Cat things like clouds). And for those asking if silk worms are actually caterpillars? Yes, they are! They are the larvae of the silk moth, Bombyx mori.

I arrived at school to a ‘special delivery’ from one of the kiddies, and we all immediately opened it up and got stuck into some wonderful discussion about what these things were (worms? slugs? nunus?) and out came the Field Guide to try and identity what exactly these creepy crawlies were (not that we were actually able to identity them, but the idea is to get into the habit of looking things up in the book). And then lots more discussion on what they eat (mulberry leaves!!) which I just so happened to have a large one growing in the field behind the school. So off we went to collect fresh leaves for the silk worms.

The silkworms lead into the ‘theme’ or rather, the letter for the week and I pulled out my playdough mats for the Letter C and we read the story of Clever Cat (we love you Letterland!) and spoke about what other ‘C’ things we could think of…and from this we found a few more things to add to learning; clouds, cows & cats.

For ‘writing practice’ (I don’t believe in anything too formal in the early years) I alternate using a big white board with lots of different sensory letters for the children to touch and trace. For this week I pulled out the rice tray and every had a go at writing the letter themselves in the rice. I always start this exercise at snack time (or while they are busy with playdough/plasticine), by reading the corresponding Letterland story that goes along with each letter, while everyone eats their snack or keeps their hands busy. And then they come up one by one so I can give them some undivided attention while they practice their letter formation. I leave this set up out for the week so that they can come and go as they please and play/learn when they are inspired to.

I had 2 finished artwork pieces in mind when we started this week (or rather when I realised we would be learning about the Letter C). One for clouds (this involved painting with shaving foam…such a fun process art activity!) and then sticking cotton wool onto the background for the clouds.

The other art piece would be loosely based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. We did marble painting (in green and yellow for the body of the caterpillar) onto white paper doilies with one red piece (done by my eldest, Everly) for the head.

{How to do the Marble Painting: simply dollop paint onto your paper/cardboard, and then let the kids roll the marble around the page. This is a little trial and error as to how many marbles to use, how quickly to roll…ie before the paint dries…and for the little hands to practice holding up the tray and getting the hang of moving the marbles around the tray. My favourite paints to use are the Giotto Tempura paints. The colours are nice and bright and the paint lasts for ages. They are well worth the extra money spent}

We also chatted about the life cycle of a silk worm (I didn’t worry too much about the whole worm vs caterpillar thing…can’t let facts get in the way of arts and crafts haha) and that they turn into moths or butterflies. The boys especially loved this very hands on week and a few of the kiddies were brave enough to really get stuck in and play with the silk worms.