Happy Birthday Eric Carle

Eric Carle is more important than the prime minister around our house. I think that he won his way into mine and Kevin’s heart when Aodhan first began to speak and upon reaching the ‘cocoon’ page in The Very Hungry Caterpillar, he just casually referred to the cocoon as “brown poop”. Kevin and I fell about laughing and I can guarantee that this will continue to be one of the little stories that Aodhan’s dad and I share for the rest of our days.
Some of Aodhan’s first sentences emerged from our reading of Eric Carle. Repetition and mimicry were easily exercised with Brown Bear, Brown Bear (props to Bill Martin Jr), and we have had more than one art session inspired by the mixed media work of this art-man turned children’s book creator.

Without being heavy handed, Eric Carle’s work offers opportunities of learning for the youngest infant to the school-age child. From colours and numbers to learning about mammals and mommies, there are countless options for learning and exploring through his work. In celebration of Eric Carle’s birthday, which is June 25th, I wanted to share a little Eric Carle dramatic play that we worked on last week.

The caterpillar costume was created at Halloween of last year, but was perfect for this dramatic play. We also used some of our Ikea felty food laid out to reenact the nibbles consumed by the voracious little caterpillar. Some scraps of brown fabric were great for the cocoon, and our butterfly wings were a purchase at our local museum.

The great thing about this dramatic play was that we read the book once through, and afterward, Aodhan repeated all of the lines while performing the actions.

And in case that wasn’t enough Eric Carle love for you, you can check out our Eric Carle DIY Lacing Cards, which are perfect for a younger soul, and here is a picture from the Eric Carle half-birthday we had for Aodhan about a million years ago.

Lastly, there is a great linky that you should take a peek through if you are wanting to build more Eric Carle fun into your days. So many lovely blogs are helping to host this, and well over 50 links have already been added.

There is always room for more Eric Carle in our life! Happy Birthday Eric Carle!