The Very Hungry Caterpillar Picnic

Who doesn’t love The Very Hungry Caterpillar? It’s a timeless firm favourite in our house and is read over and over again always with the same amount of joy. With this in mind, I wanted to create a magically themed picnic for the children based around the book so I set about planning. I wanted to involve Ms A, age 3, in the process and she was more than happy to oblige. 

First of all, we made some butterfly wings using an old sheet. It was an easy design that required no sewing but filled her with joy as she was able to get the paints out!

I cut out some wing shapes to form a cape that would be held on by ties around her shoulders, elbows and wrist (see photo below).

We then got the paints out and painted and sploshed and used our fingers to decorate. We left it to dry in the sunshine. We used normal poster paints because that was all we had in our art box but you could use acrylics or fabric paints to ensure your wings last longer. 

I cut out some leaf shapes from pieces of card to use as placemats. 

And I used a permanent Sharpie marker pen to decorate an old plate to place some of our food onto. (This pen comes off with hot soapy water.)

Finally, I made a platter of all sorts of yumminess for our picnic. 

Then we headed to the beach for some Hungry Caterpillar fun! 

Not forgetting, of course, a hefty slice of chocolate cake!

It looked wonderful…

Take a peek at our Unicorn Picnic too! 

We made sure we spent some time reading the book.

We even had our own little Hungry Caterpillar.

And plenty of sandy toes…

We’ve also had Gruffalo themed days, Stickman and The BFG.

After we’d finished our feast we made a cocoon in the sand.

…and out of it emerged the most beautiful butterfly.

Take a look at our other Fun With Food Ideas.

It really was a lovely magical few hours spent bringing our favourite book to life!