A Very Hungry Caterpillar Tea Party {With Story Stones}

I'd be very surprised if you told me that your child didn't own a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (and if they don't I insist you get one!). It's one of my absolute favourites with so many opportunities for early learning. The clever way that Eric Carle integrates concepts of days of the week, numbers, healthy/unhealthy food as well as the life cycle of a caterpillar is like no other early childhood text.

So when Johanna from Hello Pear asked me if I would like to help her launch her 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' story stones, of course I said YES!

Kindly gifted for the purpose of this review. 
Not sponsored.

Long time readers may recall that I'm a brand rep for Hello Pear, and I previously featured Johanna's beautiful and handmade alphablocks on the blog. The hours of work and attention to detail that she puts into her products is second to none. There's something really special about buying a handmade product. Have you seen this quote floating around the web? (I tried finding the original source but I couldn't track them down... if you know where it came from please let me know!)

"When you buy from a small business, an actual real person does a little happy dance."

Story stones are a beautiful tactile experience allowing young children to connect with nature. The Very Hungry Caterpillar set are ideal to retell the story in order, either follow along with the book or recall from memory what the caterpillar had to eat (it gets a bit tricky to remember the Saturday foods in order - I challenge you to see if you can do it!).

Pictured here is the set of 20 (Mr butterfly just flew in today via the post - so I'll be sure to share a photo of him on Instagram) and each is hand painted with great details. Johanna also has the Three Little Pigs set available in her store as well as a "mixed set"which encourages your child to come up with their own story. Story stones are made to order, but Johanna tells me that when school goes back she'll have plenty of time for painting (and sanding her blocks for that matter).

We ended up having a tea party! I just love how play can evolve from one thing to the next. We got some extra play food, cups, plates and a tea pot (and of course some friends for the caterpillar). I need to remind myself sometimes that a bit of time invested in Miss M's play, sets her up for another hour or so of independent play time. How fun would it be to have a tea party with the real fruit from the story!

Did you see this hungry caterpillar puzzle from my Christmas gift guide? This is another great way to sequence the story - I could imagine Miss M matching each story stone onto the right piece of food next time we get this one out.

Way back when (in 2014) I wrote about our Eric Carle author study that we did at school - lots of other great ideas here if you're interested!

And just one more link I couldn't help but share is my alphabet pebbles (another oldie from 2014!). My kids loved these - great for spelling out simple sight words and spelling words.

Special thanks to Johanna from Hello Pear for once again putting her trust in me to share her beautiful, unique handmade products with my community. Her brand new website is relaunching tonight so I would love to you pop over and have a look!

Lauren xx