caterpillar birthday party – Home School On A Dime

Upon asking Raspberry Bug which theme she wanted for her party she wasn’t quite sure. I couldn’t get her to be decisive this year at all. Until only a month or so ago when she saw my pinterest page. I was putting together a Summer Learning Board to give me some ideas. I wanted to keep the kids busy with a small amount of effort over the summer moving time while still stimulating their brains. It was there that Red fell in love with this picture (I couldn’t find a link to go along with it):

She immediately said: “I want a caterpillar birthday!” This is one thing I love (and sometimes not so much 😉 ) about Raspberry Bug. She never picks your average Disney princess theme. It has turned out to make some very cute, original, and memorable parties. We’ve had a Hello Kitty party, a ” Hawaii flowers” party, and now a Very Hungry Caterpillar party. Luckily, I was on Pinterest and was able to find plenty more ideas where that came from! We even created a Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday board together and had a sweet unplanned mother-daughter time that morning <3.

I didn’t do everything on the Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday board, nor did I stick to very many specifics, but I’ve found Pinterest to be extremely helpful in creating a vision for events like this.

Here’s what I came up with for her feed the caterpillar game:

They were a bit mangled by the end of the night when I took the pictures, but for a paper bag, they worked for exactly what we’d planned. I placed a bowl full of play foods found in The Very Hungry Caterpillar story in between the two of them and it was that simple. The younger kids kept coming back to this activity throughout the duration of the caterpillar party.

We had an AMAZING spread! I went from worrying that there wouldn’t be enough food the night before to wondering how I would fit it all on the table thirty minutes before the start:

I have a special thing going with my children’s birthdays. They get to pick any cake they want with any theme, and I create it . This was actually one of the easiest ones I’ve had to create. Just a circle cake and some cupcakes. Compare that to Master Yoda or to a pirate ship! She did ask me to do a cherry pie, too. It was, after all one of the hungry caterpillar’s favorite snacks. I don’t know if you can see from the picture, but the vent holes in the top were actually cut from a butterfly shaped play dough cutter! The jello jigglers were also cut in the shape of butterflies.

Luckily, I had some fabric from Eric Carle’s line already in my stash. I used the polka dot fabric and the food trim fabric for a make-shift table runner:

I also hung the blocked quilting fabric on the door as a welcome sign of sorts:

We used our window seat as a space for people to place their gifts and I hung handmade Very Hungry Caterpillar banners above the area:

Unfortunately, the lighting was not in our favor for photos. I initially wanted to hold the Very Hungry Caterpillar party outside, but it was just too hot for everyone. In case you can’t tell the caterpillars were made from construction paper circles. I put a letter on each section of the caterpillar’s body and punched a hole on opposite sides of each circle. I then strung fuzzy yarn through and tied that to the blinds to create the long, draped caterpillar effect you see here.

I also had an adorable Very Hungry Caterpillar sign on our mailbox to tell people where to turn in. Since we just moved I thought it would be a good idea. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of that.Too bad, really. It was one of my favorite features. It was similar to this:

But our caterpillar was scaled to fit the mailbox and I used large sticky foam cutouts for the letters. That one touch made it very bright and cheery. It also made the letters more visible to the passerby. I’m still kicking myself for not getting pictures.

When I asked the Birthday girl what her favorite part of the day was she said without hesitation that it was pin the head on the caterpillar.

I love it when they’re still young enough to view presents as a secondary bonus! This was a bit more time-consuming than some of the others (mainly because I was out of color ink and had to grab the markers instead), but this caterpillar activity was definitely worth it.

I just found a Very Hungry Caterpillar I liked from Google Images and then printed it in a 2×6 scale. Then, I pasted it into my paint program, erased the caterpillar’s body, and played with his very hungry head until it was around the same size as the whole caterpillar I made. I then proceeded to color a giant caterpillar and seven more heads… yeah.

At least they were all one of a kind. On A Dime right?

She loved present opening time (of course). However, I didn’t capture much of that either. Next year I will certainly pull one present down at a time for her. She ripped through them in no time! I mean, she must hold a record or something now.

One of my favorite parts of The Very Hungry Caterpillar party was the dress she wore. A close family friend had one sent over here the night before the party so she could wear it and wrapped a whole other one for her to open at the party. SO PRECIOUS!