The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Jumpstart's Read for the Record in 2009 featured the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We decided to present the book in sort of a puppet show in order to draw a larger audience.  Necessity is the mother of invention, isn't it?  I had to come up with a small caterpillar, a large caterpillar, a butterfly and some food props.

What says caterpillar to me?  Dryer vent hoses!  Little caterpillar, big caterpillar and the butterfly's body were all constructed in the same way.  The body is a small hose covered with some cool plush green fabric I'd been saving for just the right puppet.  The head is a small styrofoam ball painted with Colorations Activity Paint from Discount School Supply.  This paint is not specified for styrofoam, but it's great. You can see how bright the red looks.  The Hungry Caterpillar's face is so iconic that it didn't matter as much if his body didn't completely resemble Eric Carle's illustration.  I just sewed the green fabric into a tube, added fabric feet and slipped it over the dryer tube.  The head was hot glued on the open end of the tube.  Antennae is fun foam and the eyes and nose are felt.  


The butterfly's wings are a pair of children's costume wings spray painted green with fabric paint.  His legs are not the stuffed fabric legs of the caterpillars. Instead, I used brown pipe cleaners.  His antennae are green pipe cleaners.

This show was performed without a puppet stage. Instead, I told the story as I manipulated the puppets.  A Powerpoint slideshow was the background ("by the light of the moon..." and "One Sunday morning the warm sun came up...").