As I told you earlier in the week, the Very Hungry Caterpillar celebrated his 45th birthday on Thursday. In honour of the occasion, I launched a Very Hungry Caterpillar giveaway - have you entered yet ? - and today we had a fun little party with the visiting grandparents and auntie Em.
We made a special #VHC45 cake this morning. Pierre even donated his very last Smartie for his nose !
We'd received a special box full of goodies to get the party swinging, including a bunting kit. (RRP £8.95, age 3+, available at John Lewis & Bloomsbury)
There was also a paper chain garland set which made the kids squeal. They love making these at Christmas. (RRP £5.95, age 3+, available at John Lewis & Bloomsbury)
Pierre got to work on the bunting, stringing up the caterpillar then all the different things he eats before finishing off with the butterfly. You can see how hard he was concentrating !
Big sister Sophie pilfered most of the letters so that she could spell out One Direction on her bedroom wall ! There are loads of pieces in the set though - over 120, including letters, numbers, triangles and food pictures so there were still plenty to go around.
The paper garland kit has a suggested age of 3+ but it appealed to a 4-year-old, a 9-year-old and a 12-year-old here at The Madhouse !
They have an adhesive strip on one edge that you lick to stick them together so this is a really simple and mess-free activity for the kids to get involved in.
Time to eat the birthday cake - I didn't put 45 candles on there though !
The perfect plate to serve it on !
After the cake, it was time to discover the other goodies in the box. Pierre was delighted to pick out a lovely My First Puzzles collection with 4 puzzles: a 2-piece, a 3-piece, a 4-piece and a 5-piece. (RRP £5.99, age 18m+, available at Hamleys, Argos, Tesco, Amazon).
Each puzzle shows the caterpillar at a different stage of development from caterpillar to butterfly. Working through the difficulty levels is really rewarding for small children and each scene has a lot of visual clues, such as different coloured edging, to help them pick out the right pieces.
For slightly older children, there is also a 2 x 12 piece puzzle set. To help separate the pieces, the backs have different patterns on, making it much simpler to get started.
One puzzle shows the caterpillar and the other the butterfly. Pierre managed them with no help and the pieces were easy to slot together, even for little fingers.
Next, Madhouse Grandad was invited to join in with a game of pairs, using the Very Hungry Caterpillar Mini Memory game (RRP £3.99, age 3+, available from Hamleys, Argos, Tesco, Amazon). The game is made up of 48 cards so there are 24 pairs to match up and they're birghtly coloured, with pictures of the caterpillar, what he eats and what he becomes.
There was still loads more to discover in the box. Juliette excitedly grabbed the Portmeirion book ends (RRP £20) and proudly put them on the shelf in her bedroom to hold up her growing collection of books. There is also a card-making kit (RRP £8, age 3+, available at John Lewis & Bloomsbury) or, if you don't fancy getting creative, some ready-made cards from the Very Hungry Caterpillar Every-day Greeting range (RRP £1-£3.50, available at www.ukgreetings.co.uk). The tin of colouring pencils (RRP £9.95, available from John Lewis & Bloomsbury) caused a bit of a squabble because both Juliette and Sophie wanted them for school, but we decided to keep them at home and share them for a peaceful solution !
Disclosure : As an Official Very Hungry Caterpillar blogger, we've been receiving lots of lovely products over the past 6 months in order to write honest reviews and spread the word about the Very Hungry Caterpillar's special year.
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