Story Retelling-The Very Hungry Caterpillar

 This past week was filled with animal drama around here.  If you aren't caught up, Molly got skunked, one of the summer fish fish pulled a Nemo and someone ate my Thirty One bag.  I was very sad about my bag.  It was my super cool teacher bag.  Not anymore. 

I was rather busy all week.  On Wednesday some girls from school came over and we had another Pinterest party.  I am loving the parties and we are killing the food.  The recipes we're making from Pinterest makes us all look like freaking Martha Stewarts.  I suppose if you don't see our kitchens after we cook, bake and create then you'll never really know that we don't have her orgainization skills and production crew backing us up keep our kitchens immaculate.  We had Houlihans chopped side salad, pizza muffins, calprese salad, cookie dough cupcakes, mini dessert fruit pizzas and banana pudding.  It was delicious!  If only I'd remembered to take a picture.

Girls from my school come over and we usually work on school projects during our Pinterest parties.  This time we had a wide assortment of activities as usually.  One teacher was Mod Podging (yes, it's now a verb) her clipboards with scrapbooking paper.  Another was working on an "Issue Box" make from a Kleenex box for kids to place their problems inside.  Several of the girls were jazzing up their clothes pins by putting scrapbook paper on the pin with Mod Podge. 

I decided to work on a story retelling prop.  It is helpful for students to practice retelling stories using hands on materials to facilitate their learning.  We do a lot with the story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, in our kindergarten class.  The idea I found on Pinterest used a Pringles can with a slot cut out for the caterpillar's mouth and soda lids for placing the pieces for the food that the caterpillar eats.  Using white cardstock I Mod Podged the cardstock on the can and added a small piece of green around the top.  I then cut out my caterpillar pieces and Mod Podged them onto the can.  I freehanded the caterpillar.  My teacher friends, Darci and Christina, were kind and wrote the title at the top and cut out the slot for the mouth for me. 

I decided since I don't drink soda it may take me a while to collect the soda lids so instead I found wooden nickels in the wood craft section of The Lob.  I cut out the cute pieces with the food on them.  I found the link for them here:  http://alljoinin.blogspot.ca/2011/11/very-hungry-caterpillar-story-props.html You'll need to register to download them but it is free to get them.  After cutting out the food pieces I used Mod Podge to adhere them to my wooden nickels. 

That was it!  It was a super easy project to  put together and it will be ready to go for next school year.  Now I am trying to figure out ways to incorporate my other stories into story retelling props.  Now if we can just figure out what happened to my Thirty One bag.  Girls?