The Very Hungry Caterpillar
A Children's Book for Learning French, Spanish, and ESL
Learn foreign language in context with Eric Carle's classic picture book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
All beginning language learners enjoy a good story. A children's book is a powerful tool for foreign language learning. Whether your students are 2 or 20, use Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar [Philomel, 1981] to introduce or review basic concepts in French, Spanish or ESL.
French and Spanish Translations
First, you will need a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar in your target language. Check out Amazon's website for foreign language versions of this picture book.
- La Chenille Qui Fait des Trous (French--French & European Pubns, 2005)
- La Oruga Muy Hambrienta (Spanish--Philomel, 2002)
Vocabulary and Concepts
There are many high-frequency language concepts in The Very Hungry Caterpillar:
- Days of the week
- Weather
- Numbers
- Foods
- Life cycle of a butterfly
- Adjectives (big/little)
- Colors (on the butterfly)
- Expressions using the verb "to have" in French and Spanish (hunger, stomachache)
Lessons and Activities
- Read the book to your students. Re-tell it frequently during this unit.
- Create picture flashcards of the basic story line: egg, little caterpillar, foods, big caterpillar, cocoon, and butterfly. Drill the vocabulary, distribute the pictures to your students, and retell the story as your students listen for their cue to come to the front of the room with their picture. Line the students up in order.
- After you have done this full-class listening comprehension activity, distribute small picture cards to each student and tell the story again as each individual arranges their cards according to the story.
- Prepare a CLOZE activity of the story with a word bank. Students fill in the blanks and draw simple illustrations.
- Use plastic toy foods to drill vocabulary. Teach students how to express their preferences about the main five fruits in the story (apple, pears, plums, strawberries, oranges.) Create a human graph or a bar graph depicting favorite fruits of the class.
- Make a hungry caterpillar fruit salad to eat. Your students can learn the "how-to" steps to making the salad in the target language.
- Create a butterfly color-by-number activity
- Practice adjective placement and agreement (if applicable), with the little/big caterpillar as a springboard. Extend the adjective practice to colors and sizes of the foods in the story.
- Return to the sequencing cards in step 3. After modeling by the teacher and practice in partners, have students re-tell the story from memory as they arrange their cards in order. This would be an excellent assessment.
- Throughout the unit, play vocabulary games to practice the various words and phrases:
- Days of the week concentration game
- Weather or foods tic tac toe game
- Foods bingo
- Number games
- Life cycle sequencing cards
- Cassroom basketball game with comprehension questions about the story
Enjoy learning foreign languages with The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
The copyright of the article The Very Hungry Caterpillar in Language Study is owned by Diane Farrug. Permission to republish The Very Hungry Caterpillar must be granted by the author in writing.
