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The Very Hungry Caterpillar Worksheets: Free Printables

Enjoy this month’s free homeschool printable pack based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar book by Eric Carle. Designed for Preschool and Early Kindergarten, these Very Hungry Caterpillar free printable worksheets focus on beginning sounds, scissor skills, simple addition, and matching.

Growing up, my children loved all of Eric Carle’s books, but The Very Hungry Caterpillar was always a favorite. The colorful artwork and simple story line always kept my children’s attention. Not only will your children learn about the lifecycle of a caterpillar/ butterfly in this book, you can also practice days of the week.

Another thing I love about this book is that it is always available at your local library, no matter how big or small. There is also a board book version and it’s been translated into numerous languages.

If you are feeling adventurous challenge your children to try the foods the caterpillar eats through in the book. It’s a great way to get a picky eat to try something new!

This is a great printable pack to keep preschoolers active and busy while you are schooling the older kids. My kindergartener loved having her worksheets so she could “do school” just like the big kids. We used this pack while my older children were completing their bug unit study.

Use this preschool printable pack along with unit studies about bugs, caterpillars/ butterflies, or even healthy eating (try the foods the caterpillar munches on in the book). From the board book when they were toddlers to the paperback for my preschoolers, the story delighted all my children when they were little.

Grab The Very Hungry Caterpillar book on Amazon!

Printable Pack Includes

In this 4-page printable set for The Very Hungry Caterpillar, you’ll find:

Caterpillar Matching – Match each item in the left-hand column with its match in the row
Scissor Skills – Use scissors to match each item
Caterpillar Simple Addition – Follow the pear path, where each equation builds on the next; uses simple addition
Caterpillar Writing Practice – Determine the beginning sound of each picture; includes handwriting

Jello Play Dough Recipe

by Toni Herrbach

I have to admit to you that I am the world’s worst play dough maker. Seriously. When my kids were in pre-school the school gave me a pass on my turn as play dough mom. That was after three different “fail proof” recipes turned out runny or crumbly. That was the beginning and ending of my homemade play dough career.

These days, my 12 year old daughter makes the play dough. She’s pretty good at it. Her favorite recipe is one that uses Jello. The kids love the color, the sweet scent, and the smooth texture. We like it better than store bought!

Jello Play Dough Recipe

Ingredients

1 cup flour + 1/2 cup extra
1 cup water
2 tablespoons salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1-3ounce package of Jello

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients (except the extra amount of flour) in a bowl.

2. When mixed, pour into non-stick sauce pan and heat on low. Stir until a ball of dough forms. Be patient. It might take a while, but it does happen.

3. Place ball of dough on wax paper to cool. When cool, knead dough adding extra flour as needed until dough is smooth and not sticky. Store in a zip top plastic bag up to two months.

Enjoy!

What’s your favorite fail proof homemade play dough recipe?

You might also like:

Edible Peanut Butter Play Dough
10 Easy Play Dough Activities for Your Homeschool
4 Benefits of Play Dough
Cookie Dough Geography (could sub cookie dough for play dough!)

By contributing writer Marci

Math Worksheets: Beach-Themed Free Printables

by Toni Herrbach

This month’s free worksheets focus on a beach theme. The math worksheets in this packet are geared towards 2nd-4th graders.

Math Worksheets Overview

In this 3-page math printable set, you’ll find:

Estimating Numbers – Determine if estimation or actual numbers should be used in each beach-themed situation
Averaging Numbers – Determine the average of each set of numbers; contains 1 beach-themed word problem
Geometry Practice: Circles – Practice naming each circle, radius, and diameter with the beach-themed items

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by contributing writer Lauren

4 Benefits of Play Doh

by Toni Herrbach

by contributing writer Tabitha

Sometimes I say “yes” to my kids even when I really, really don’t want to. One of those times is when they ask to play with Play Doh (or clay, or paints, or other messy art projects.) I dread the clean up. I dread the mess. I dread the colored bits ground into the rug or carpet. However, there is not one time that I have regretted saying “yes.”

(photo by Alex Bruda)

Play Doh is something that has no boundaries, no age barriers, no gender specific roles, no rules. You have a lump of some colored gunk and you get to make something out of it. Does that faze anyone? No! And it shouldn’t, other than the millions of moms (not just me?) who don’t want to clean it up. But we do!

There are many benefits to Play Doh.

Side note: I’ve got some homemade play doh recipes below, but just in case you want the store bought variety, I found some pretty good prices online for Play Doh here with most of them shipping free with Prime or a $35+ order!

Helps Tactile Learners

The best way for tactile learners to learn is to get messy. They need to feel things in their hands for it really to take shape. Even if it’s rolling a snake while Mom is talking about colors, or smashing a ball into a cookie while overhearing an older brother talk about algebra. It’s mastering that power over a substance and making something new with your own hands!

Provides Down Time

Both students and teachers (moms) need down time. Who doesn’t love squishing things once in a while? Play doh (and some other materials) are great for playing with your kids. You can make a monster and chase around your child’s creation. You can laugh and giggle with your child(ren) as they make up elaborate stories around their creations, because…

Play Doh is an Ever Changing Medium

You don’t make something and then it sits there. A tower morphs into a ball which changes into a chair, which somehow becomes a snowman. And there’s a reason for every change. I love hearing all about it. My older kids, my younger kids, my middle kids, all of my kids can’t say no to playing with it and making new things.

Play Doh Sparks Creativity

The number one reason I have to say yes to a medium I really don’t like is this: it is one thing that always, always, always brings creativity into action. Sure, there are “sets” that you can use that only have a few outcomes, but even with those, it is always different. I can definitely see it as I’ve watched my kids grow with Play Doh.

From 16 to 3, boys and girls, everyone brings out their creative sides when you pull out the Play Doh, homemade or store bought, bright colored or plain. The stories told are different. The colors are different. The guy with the purple pants has a different adventure with the walking flower and the polka dot snake in the green mountains that sparkle. The monsters eat each other and somehow everyone is still friends. The end.

Once the floodgates to creativity are opened, it helps in all areas of our homeschool adventure. Reading is fun because it brings us new characters to make out of Play Doh. Math problems are even easier because we can think outside the box. Story ideas flow from the characters we’ve created on the table. Art is easier because we can both see and create new things.

A good day turns into a great one because “Mom let us play with Play Doh!”

You might also like:

Jello Play Dough
Edible Peanut Butter Play Dough
10 Easy Play Dough Activities for Your Homeschool
Cookie Dough Geography (could sub cookie dough for play dough!)

Edible Peanut Butter Play Dough

by Toni Herrbach

by contributing writer Colleen

I have a love-hate relationship with Play Doh.

I love:

that my kids have fun with it.
that it is great for sensory and imaginative play.
that it works my little ones’ fine motor skills and finger/hand muscles.

I hate:

everything else about it.
the mess.
the little pieces that get all over.
the dried and impossible-to-remove Play Doh that gets in the rug under the table no matter what precautions I take to have my kids keep it on the table.

This edible peanut butter play dough is one play dough I don’t mind though, and one that can do double duty as a sweet protein-packed snack. (Okay, is also pretty sugary, but once in awhile is okay, right?)

It takes three simple ingredients — peanut butter, honey, and powdered sugar — and some muscle power from your little helpers.

Call it a homeschool math lesson, and you’ll be the best. mom. ever.

Edible Peanut Butter Play Dough

Ingredients

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup honey
1 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Have your kiddos measure the ingredients and put them in a large mixing bowl.

2. Give them a wooden spoon and let them mix it all together. If it gets to be too tough to mix, have them use their hands — it’s play dough, after all. (Or you they could just forget the mixing all together and just eat it straight from the bowl like my little one did.)

3. Once the ingredients have all been incorporated, they’ll be left with a ball of peanut butter play dough. Break out the rolling pins, cookie cutters, and plastic knives, and let them play and eat until they’re tired of it (or wired from all the sugar).

You can store the play dough in the refrigerator for about a week and pull it out to play with from time to time.

Let me know if you give it a try — or if you have other ideas for edible play dough. I’d love to have some new rainy day activities to pull out with my kids.

You might also like:

Jello Play Dough
10 Easy Play Dough Activities for Your Homeschool
4 Benefits of Play Dough
Cookie Dough Geography (could sub cookie dough for play dough!)

Incorporate Play Doh into Your Homeschool Lessons

by Toni Herrbach

by contributing writer Stef

I was never a play doh fan. It smells weird. You can imagine I never wanted to incorporate play doh into our homeschool lessons.

Eventually, after much pleading, I set aside special time for play doh fun under serious surveillance so no one accidentally mixed colors. Surely mixing colors is against play doh law.

Rather than see how my tactile students loved to use play doh, I treated it like a viral infection. Pick up every single tiny piece, pack it up tight, complain about it, wash hands, and set the containers on a high shelf.

Once I got over the squishy weird texture and wonky smell, I decided to dump it on the table and incorporate it into every subject.

9 Easy Play Doh Activities for Your Homeschool

Play Doh Letters – Roll out play doh and form letters for preschoolers.
Play Doh Numbers – Roll out play doh and form numbers, put them in order.
Play Doh Shapes – See how many shapes you can form without a cookie cutter.
Play Doh Anatomy – Sculpt inner organs and let your mad scientist have fun.
Play Doh Animals – Create ocean animals, farm animals, or wild animals.
Play Doh Planets – Round up rock formations and have out-of-this-world fun.
Play Doh Countries – Form continents and make a 3-D map.
Play Doh Food – Get friendly with the food pyramid, learn the difference between vegetables and fruits.
Play Doh Stories – Let them create a story with crazy play doh creations such as aliens or bugs. You can write it off as speech class and score points for being the coolest mom ever.

Surprise your children and pull out the Play Doh tomorrow! If you are running out of play doh, then use the links below to make your own or buy some online (Amazon has some great deals with free shipping most of the time!).

You might also like:

Jello Play Dough
Edible Peanut Butter Play Dough
4 Benefits of Play Dough
Cookie Dough Geography (could sub cookie dough for play dough!)

Making Science Models

by Toni Herrbach

by contributing writer Marci

We love hands-on science at our house. I can’t imagine effectively studying it any other way, although there are times when hands on can get tricky, say when you are studying organs of the body.

Somebody out there just went “ewww….gross!” I can hear you. Don’t worry. This is not a dissection post. This is where science models come in.

When we studied the way blood flows through the heart this year, we found a detailed drawing of the cross-section of a heart. It was complete with red and blue colors representing oxygen-rich blood and oxygen depleted blood and arrows to show the direction of the blood flow. It was a good diagram, but still a little hard for the kids to grasp.

“I wish I could hold that picture and move it around,” my daughter said. Then, I see the lights go on. She loves clay of all sorts and is always creating with it. Before I knew it, she was shaping clay into a 3D model of the drawn diagram.

When we got to the chapter about the nervous system, she made more models.

Benefits Of Making Science Models

Making models helps kids learn several ways. First, the construction of the model requires them to look more closely at an image or subject than they would have normally. Size, shape, proportion and how parts fit together are really studied. Visual learning is taking place.

Creating a model with their own hands allows for tactile learning. Students who are tactile (kinesthetic) learners can really benefit from model building. Images or words on a page might not mean much to them, but hands-on activities make the subject come alive. It is my belief that all kids are tactile learners in some sense.

Gloria Moskowitz-Sweet, licensed clinical social worker and coordinator of Parents Place Express, says that all kids start out as tactile learners, but start to realize their main learning style by 2nd or 3rd grade. However, she also says that half of all kids remain kinesthetic learners on some level.

In our house, after the model is created, the kids have to tell me all about it. They have to tell me about the parts and how they work. This act allows for testing of what they already know, and by hearing what they are saying, auditory learning is taking place.

We usually make our models with oven bake clay that allows us to preserve them for further study and review. but you could use play dough and just take the model apart when you are finished to reuse the dough later.

Have you ever made your own science models? What did you make?

More Homeschool Science from Marci

Tapestry of Grace: Curriculum Review

by Toni Herrbach

April is curriculum review month on TheHappyHousewife.com. We want to help you find the best curriculum for your family by posting a curriculum review every day! You can find all the curriculum reviews here.

Can you believe it’s the final day of homeschool review month? I’m really thankful to be homeschooling in an era where we have so many choices for our kids. No matter what type of learner you are raising there is a curriculum out there for your child.

Even if you can’t find the perfect curriculum there are so many resources online to help you create your own! Don’t forget you can find all the curriculum we’ve reviewed this month and many others on the homeschool curriculum review page.

I’ve always wanted to use Tapestry of Grace. Many of my friends have used it over the years and I’ve never met anyone who didn’t love it. I’ve stayed away from it over the years because I was intimidated by the teacher prep. I think that aspect of the curriculum has gotten better over the years and from what I’ve seen and heard it is an excellent core curriculum.

For those of you who are intimidated by unit studies in general, don’t be. The years we used the Weaver curriculum were some of my favorite homeschooling years. We never did all the assignments, and I don’t think we even finished all the lessons, but my kids learned so much. My older two children, now 16 and 18, still can recall projects and lessons from over ten years ago.

So if you are looking for a multilevel curriculum read this review of Tapestry of Grace.

Alpha-phonics: Curriculum Review

by Toni Herrbach

April is curriculum review month on TheHappyHousewife.com. We want to help you find the best curriculum for your family by posting a curriculum review every day! You can find all the curriculum reviews here.

Years ago I used Alpha-Phonics: A Primer For Beginning Readers with one of our kids. It was so long ago I don’t remember which child used the book or why we didn’t continue using it. I suspect it was for my child who taught himself how to read so by the time I sat down with Alpha-Phonics we didn’t really need it.

Tricia at Hodgepodge Mom has a great review of the program so if you are thinking about using it for phonics in your homeschool read her review before purchasing. Alpha-Phonics is an inexpensive and reusable book so if you think it will work for you it is a great frugal phonics resource.

You can read Hodgepodge Mom’s review here.

The Curiosity Files Science Curriculum Review

by Toni Herrbach

April is curriculum review month on TheHappyHousewife.com. We want to help you find the best curriculum for your family by posting a curriculum review every day! You can find all the curriculum reviews here.

The Curiosity Files, created by The Old Schoolhouse, are a series of 80-100 page eBooks that are unit studies for the abnormal and bizarre in Science to discover how the unconventional things that God has made reflect the beauty of His creativity. Geared towards engaging 8-13 year olds, these unique unit studies contain:

Inquisitive topics
Hyperlinked table of contents
Bible study and Bible memory applications
Science, math, history, and geography investigations
Literature and suggested book list
Writing, spelling, vocabulary
Beautiful copywork pages (manuscript and cursive)
Discussion questions, special projects, and experiments
Arts and crafts, drawing and coloring pages
Lapbook/notebook pages and helpful lapbooking links
Special needs, hands-on discoveries – good for all learning styles
Internet resources, video links, and answer keys

Here are a few examples of The Curiosity Files unit studies: Whirlpools, Vegetarian Spiders, Platypus, Quicksand, Cicada-Killing Wasp, Zombie Fire Ants, Rogue Waves, and more! Lots of different topics designed to engage a variety of interests.

For more information about The Curiosity Files, check out these curriculum reviews from Purposeful Homemaking and The Johns Family.

License:	CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Date:	April 21, 2013