The Caterpillar Activity - Enriching First Language Lessons

We have discovered First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind and I’m obsessed!
Read my summary of FLL here.
(You can buy First Language Lessons Level 1 here)

Your kids will love this hands-on Caterpillar activity if they are doing FLL or if you want to do a poetry study on your own. “The Caterpillar” poem is introduced in Lesson 2 but I would do this activity around Lesson 9ish to reinforce the memorization and have something fun to hang up and remind the children of the poem as them move on to the next poem.

Lesson 2: Hands-on Caterpillar activity

Young children (materials – printable on white paper, pencil, brown washable maker, at least two other colors of washable marker, black fine-tip marker or pen, lil’ fingers, green crayons.)

Print “The Caterpillar” copy work printable.
Have children trace the letters.
Use fingerprints to make a caterpillar on the bottom of the paper on the left hand side.
Use fingerprints to make a butterfly on the right hand side of the paper.
Draw antenna, faces, and feet with the sharpie.
Children can make a shady leaf or stalk with crayons on the sides of the paper.
Consider mounting on a piece of construction paper for display.

Older children (materials – printable on white paper, pencil, brown washable maker, at least two other colors of washable marker, lil’ fingers, green crayons.)

Place the “The Caterpillar” copy work for older children. (There is space for their original poem.)
Trace “The Caterpillar” on the left hand side.
Have students write the final draft of their own original poem on the right hand side. (Suggested topics are caterpillars, butterflies, plants or flowers.)
Follow steps 3-7 above to decorate the poems and display.

The kids created some pretty cute butterflies and caterpillars!

Cyrus did the copy work and the older kids created original poetry.
Some of you might have just discovered FLL (like me) and want to blast though Level 1 with your older kids to get to the proper level without gaps. My older were able to do just a bit more than the level one requirements. This hands-on caterpillar activity and original poetry exercise was right up our alley!

This was our first time intentionally writing a poem, inspired by a poem they memorized.
They had so much fun brainstorming their ideas then honing in on what would actually be in their poem. I thought the process would be a little daunting… but it was wonderful!