We knew that Em was planning a Very Hungry Caterpillar party for Robyn, so when we spotted a caterpillar costume in town it was the perfect birthday present for her, along with a hungry caterpillar colouring book. The party was fab too 
More photos here if anyone’s interested.
We did our Very Hungry Caterpillar tea this evening
Otherwise a very average sort of a day, including Start Right for Joe, school for Anna, Sainsbury’s shopping for me, and not a lot in between. Anna did some typing and cello practise, Abbie played on Education City for a while, and I coaxed the girls into thinking about what they might like to do over the next couple of months wrt learning at home. This was like getting blood out of a stone, it really was. I asked them if they’d rather *I* decided what they should learn, (they said yes, doh) and reminded them that one of the things that is supposed to happen in a home educating household is that the children can choose what they study. They really didn’t have a clue, or any remote ideas really. Makes me wonder if I still spoonfeed them too much. In the end Anna decided to do a project on Bugs, and Abbie has chosen Ducks. We had a bit of a brainstorm session and they managed to come up with a few ideas, but it was really hard work. I guess just because we home educate doesn’t mean they *have* to decide what to learn, but I’d always envisaged that they would at least have some ideas that I could then facilitate. Anna came up with the idea of Transport, too, but then couldn’t break it down and say what exactly she wanted to learn about transport, so that might have to wait until things have crystallised in her mind a bit. If they do.
Anyway, back to tea. I’m a firm believer that all projects should include a meal (lol, deep fried locusts and roast duck coming up soon 
), so to finish off Josiah’s Hungry Caterpillar project we did a tea that consisted of all the items that the caterpillar ate on Saturday. The kids thought it was absolutely great; I can’t believe I actually fed them so much unhealthy stuff in one mealtime! Still, they can brush their teeth before bed!
I sincerely hope they don’t all get ill! Josiah said his favourite part was the watermelon, so there is hope for him yet. Abbie liked the watermelon too. Anna is obviously hopelessly addicted to sugar as she cited the lolly, cake etc. as her faves. I ate all the leftovers, cherry pie and swiss cheese! I swear that is my downfall.
Proud of my boy, today The girls sat and did a bit of finishing off on their lapbook this morning, so he settled down to do his, and concentrated on it for hours after they’d gone off to play next door. Here he is actually playing with the life cycle and story sequencing cards that I made for him (printed off from here and here)
By lunchtime we had it finished, he’d stuck all the bits in, and he is so proud of himself. Obviously I helped him a fair amount with it, but he definitely has ownership of it as a project, and I’ve had to listen to him reading the book at least twice already today! When the girls came in a minute ago he made them sit and look at it with him, so I grabbed the camera and snapped over his shoulder.
self explanatory front cover
first level – numbers on the left, story sequencing and favourite words on the right
writing – Joe chose his favourite words from some of the pages and we wrote them out together, his is all his own work, no help from me at all
and inside is the life cycle stuff. forgot to photograph the back cover which has a beautifully coloured butterfly picture on it, complete with extra legs that Joe made me draw on, because the picture didn’t have the right number!
Then while I was at it I thought I might as well take photos of the girls’ project, even though it still has a couple of bits to finish off.
Front cover and first level opening (gotta love Abbie’s choice of picture this morning, Alice Arden being burned at the stake. Horrible Histories are to thank for the attraction of all things gory and gruesome!)
accordian fold mini books on each side at the top, hamburger fold books at the bottom, plus the extra flaps have a family tree and wordsearch stuck on.
Of course this is all very well and good but it isn’t getting my packing done, we’re off to Minehead tomorrow, and I’m procrastinating as usual. Steve is staying behind, hon, please remember to water the greenhouse pots as well as checking on the hamster – cleaning the house would be a welcome extra
This post just gathers together everything we’ve done on this topic. I’ve mainly done it with Josiah although the girls have been involved as well, because they can’t stand not to be
During March we had some caterpillars from the Formative fun/Insectlore Butterfly garden kit, which we watched grow and pupate. We actually did this a couple of years ago as well and really enjoyed it, so it was nice for Joe to be a bit more involved with this lot! We didn’t manage to actually see any of the butterflies emerging, but we observed them once they had hatched and Josiah enjoyed releasing them.
We made a caterpillar crawling through a leaf from these instructions.
We put together a window wheel showing the four stages in a butterfly’s life cycle, and used some sequencing cards to support this.
We made a flap book about the days of the week, and used sequencing cards for each section of the story to go with them. Josiah also wrote out the days of the week and we put them in another lapbook section.
We talked about food and the things we eat, and what makes a healthy diet. Just for fun, we had a meal that was the same as the Very Hungry Caterpillar’s food on Saturday and Joe tried all the different flavours.
We collected vocabulary words in another section of the lapbook, including the days of the week, number words, food related words, etc.
And we did lots of artwork for the lapbook and for fun.