The Very Wonderful Caterpillar

I LOVE SLATE. I love, love, love Slate. That said, this is the most ridiculous article EVER.

1. I love The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It is one of the few books I will read over, and over, and over again in my classroom without becoming crazy.

2. His wife (an elementary literacy specialist) is right and I would add to it. The simplicity of a story for especially preschoolers both draws them in and engages them at a level they can master. What a powerful book! My returning four year olds will engage in complicated play-counting up the total number of fruit the caterpillar eats and use sentence starter/structures of "On ____, he at through ____ ______" to use clues to identify words. My three year olds will be able to conceptualize beginning, middle, end and numeral concepts (see, three strawberries! 1, 2, 3). My DLL (dual language learner) students after multiple repeats in two languages have read a book that maintains its charm in re-telling. A few of the things we talk about in my class about this book: the passage of time, the lifecycle of a butterfly, types of fruit, how the last number we count represents the whole (1, 2, there are 2), junk food vs healthy food and sequence.

3. It's really interesting that the author of the article things children focus on the pictures. Hence the harm in assuming one's own experience reading to one toddler represent all experiences with all children.