I was delighted to see Travis pretending this morning that he was on a “nature walk” around our apartment, taking along a bucket and finding “treasures.” One of the items we never found on a true nature walk this fall was a wooly bear caterpillar – so we decided to make a few to find around the house!

Wrap pipe cleaners around a pencil tightly, then simply slide off. I only had brown pipe cleaners at home, which served our purpose perfectly, but feel free to be inventive with colors: shiny caterpillars, multi-colored caterpillars, whatever suits your child’s fancy!

Travis immediately was wiggling them around the “forest floor.”

He then stretched out some of the coils so they could be worms instead – I love when his imagination takes a game in a direction I hadn’t anticipated.

He then wanted a turn coiling a pipe cleaner around the pencil, which was tricky for him, but he loved trying it out.

We ended up gluing googly eyes on just a couple of the caterpillars, for an extra adorable touch.