Favourite Eric Carle books... and a felt board theme to match!

Before Sweetpea's birth I bought her two beautiful board books by renowned American children's book writer and illutrator, Eric Carle.  They are My very first book of shapes and My very first book of colours. The pages are split into two, with the top pages showing either the silhouette of a shape, or a block of
colour, to match to the pictures on the bottom set of pages.

We have read and read and re-read these two little books, and now ArrowBoy are starting to enjoy them, too!  You can click on the links below these pictures to order the books from Kalahari.net!

                                                            My very first book of colors

                                                            My very first book of shapes

The next Carle-addition to our bookshelf was The Very Hungry Caterpillar, one of the most popular of all his books (he has sold over 88 million copies of his books around the world, and The very hungry caterpillar has been translated into 47 languages!) Sweetpea LOVES this book with the holes where the caterpillar had eaten his way trhough all the food! So, since we are so keen on felt boards around here these days, I had great fun creating a Caterpillar-themed felt board set for her!

And a little more detail...

As I was browsing around on the official Eric Carle website , I found a page called The Caterpillar Exchange under the Resource section. This is a bulletin board where parents and teachers share ideas about how they have used Carle's books in teaching their children anything from sequencing to healthy eating habits! One EXCELLENT idea that I will definitely do with Sweetpea tomorrow, is to make an actual little caterpillar that the child can push through the holes in the pages as he 'eats' his way through all the food! The lady who sent in that idea actually sewed a little stuffed caterpillar, but we have the board book with smaller holes, so I am thinking of using a piece of green pipe cleaner.

This is definitely a book that deserves a spot on your child's bookshelf. You can purchase it by clicking on the link below!

                                                             The Very hungry Caterpillar

STOP PRESS: As I was writing this post, my friend Georgia from Love and Lollipops sent me an e-mail to tell me about the Caterpillar post she has just published on her blog!! Go check it out  - her boys used a craft set she bought from me to make two super-cute caterpillars. Well done, boys!

We are now reading The Grouchy Ladybug which I found at our library last week. The daddy also read it to Sweetpea over the weekend and now we all go around asking each other: "Want to fight? No, you're not big enough!!" all day!