Cheerio Caterpillars (Fine Motor Skills Activity For Toddlers and Preschoolers)
This Cheerio Caterpillars activity helps your toddler or preschooler work on their fine motor skills, counting, and artistic expression.
Let the bug-themed activities continue! I’m really excited to share this one with y’all. It was a big hit, even more so than our Bug Theme Preschool Worksheets, which I thought would be hard to beat!
Making these Cheerio caterpillars is a great way to work on fine motor skills, and you can incorporate counting as they add each Cheerio.
It’s super simple and if you have kids, chances are you already have the materials at home.
Here is what you’ll need:
- Pipe Cleaners
- Cheerios
- Glue
- Googly Eyes
On one end of the pipe cleaner, create a small loop and twist the end to create the “head” of the caterpillar.
I glued the googly eyes on 2 days in advance so they would have plenty of time to dry. If you have a hot glue gun, this shouldn’t be an issue, but you’ll still want to do it before your kids are involved.
I also finished a caterpillar by myself in advance, so the kids had an example of what the goal was.
Jackson couldn’t stop giggling as he raced to put cheerios on the “caterpillar” faster than his brother and I.
This is a great way to get your kids excited about counting. Jackson asked me to count how many Cheerios his caterpillar had after each one he added, which was the perfect segue to a short lesson on simple addition.
He was also interested in knowing how many more Cheerios he had added than his brother. (Boys are so competitive!)
He was so proud when he finished, he couldn’t stop showing it off. He wouldn’t let me take the last cheerio off to tie the end, because he was so proud of every single one he added.
We celebrated by eating the rest of the cheerios!
This was a short and sweet post, but I hope you found it helpful. This activity is so simple and fun! The cleanup was not bad at all, and I would love to do it again.
If you try this cheerio caterpillar activity out, I would love to see!
You can tag me on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
I’d be super happy if you added the hashtag #homesteadmamamovement
If you liked this post, don’t forget to pin it for later:
What a fun activity and so simple. My littles would love this. I bet it would be fun with pony beads too! I’m pinning for a rainy craft day! Thanks for sharing.
Oh yeah! I didn’t even consider that 😊 that would be so cute. Thanks for reading!
This is so cute! Definitely want to try this with my kindergarten class! They will love it!
I bet they would! 😍 Thank you so much!
Victoria, This is such an awesome idea and so creative!! I’m gonna definitely have to try this with Judah!
You should, he would love it 😍 tag me on Instagram if you do!
These are cute!!! Art and fine motor wrapped into one activity! I’ve also made octopus using Cheerios on the tentacles. We used lavender paper for the octopus cutouts, they came out super cute!
Oh that’s such a cute idea! You should post about it 😍 and thank you so much!
This is such a fun thing to do. My students LOVE this.. AND.. so do their parents!
Did you use it Catie? 😍 That’s awesome!
This is such a fun activity! I’ll have to try this with my toddler, though he might end up eating the cheerios in the process LOL
Hahaha so did my nephews 😂 You have to set out a big ol’ bowl of them! 😂
You are so creative! How do you come up with these awesome projects?!
Awww you’re so sweet! I can’t take credit though, I’ve seen it on Pinterest before 😊
I love how these look afterwards. It’s a craft and snack all in one! My boys would love these! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Katherine! 😊 you should make them while the little one naps! ❤️
I love this! Simple and cute. Doing this with my daughter today since we don’t have much planned!
How awesome! I hope y’all had fun 😊 thank you so much
This looks so fun! I’ll have to try this with my little, for sure!
They’ll love it 😊 tag me on Instagram if you do! 😍
So cute! My lady isn’t big enough yet but one day this will be awesome!
Same here! I can’t wait to make them with my son 😊 My nephews loved them!
Haha this reminds me of me when I was young! I used to play with the cheerios making different things like faces and caterpillars just like you said.