Friday, September 18th, 2026~

red6750

Sep 18

2 min read

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Happy Friday to all! We had another fun and busy day in the Red Room this morning. Today we wanted to dig a little deeper into our intention behind our first storyboard inspired by Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Your little ones have really been enjoying this space since the very first day of school. We use these storyboards as another platform for building a strong literacy foundation within our curriculum. Each storyboard includes a variety of props which children can then use to retell a specific story. These props allow for open ended storytelling while still challenging your little ones to recall the plot and character development of the chosen story, which in this case is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. These story retelling invitations will be interwoven into our curriculum throughout our entire school year and today we wanted to share why we create them and why they are so valuable to your child's overall development.

Today during our Morning Meeting we used all our props to retell the story all together. Leading up to today, your little ones have been working in small groups and one-on-one with a teacher to retell this story, so we were all really excited to bring the story to whole group.

Why is story retelling so important?

Learning to retell a story is an important skill for building reading comprehension and writing skills in young children. Children need to develop storytelling skills in a spoken format before they can apply them to a written format. Additionally, it fosters language development (receptive and expressive) and self-expression! When children use props it can enrich their comprehension allowing children to delve deeper into a specific story. Furthermore, it fosters critical thinking, problem solving, and compare/contrast skills. The use of props draws on your children's attention and allow them to feel part of the story itself creating a meaningful and authentic connection to their own learning!

Overall Benefits Include:

Story comprehension: Props can help children understand the story and recall and retell events.
Imagination and creativity: Creating stories with props can help children engage their imagination and further develop their creativity.
Listening skills: Using books and props to retell stories can help develop children's listening skills and enhance overall attention span.
Cultural understanding: Stories can reflect cultural values, traditions, and experiences, which can help children develop an appreciation for diversity.
Sequencing and organization abilities: Asking children to retell stories can help them learn to remember the order of a story (beginning, middle, and end).
Vocabulary: Props can help children enhance their understanding of vocabulary and concepts.
Critical thinking, problem solving, and comparison and contrast: Props can create an environment to introduce these skills

Props that we included to retell the story:

Time to explore...

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/71b1f9_5c338610a03f4f4a8a2135700ad9a8dc/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Your little ones have been busy practicing all of the above skills independently, alongside a friend, and/or in small groups. We're so impressed with how quickly they have learned the sequence of this story and how they have already begun to anticipate which props come next as they retell The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Sloane