A Week Is A Long Time

Helping Students Understand Measure Of Time: book two

In our series of short blogs aimed at helping students understand what a day is and how days are sequenced, we share our second book. Book two is the ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar‘.

A week is a long time in the life cycle of a caterpillar and young children need opportunities to think about changes over time.

Usually, when we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, the food takes centre stage but there is more to explore and questions to be asked, for instance:
“On what day was the egg laid?”
“What time of day was it laid?”

Some students don’t yet understand that a whole day has daytime and night-time.

“What did the caterpillar eat the day after/ before he ate the strawberries?”
“What day did the caterpillar emerge as a butterfly?”

Yes, The Very Hungry Caterpillar gives us a perfect opportunity to create a timeline or sequence with the days of the week so that students can see the repeating pattern of the days and how many days are in a week or two weeks.

One of the important ideas to develop an understanding of just how long a week or two weeks actually is, so why not stretch the creation of the timeline across the actual time frame adding one new entry each day and making a big deal of the repetition of the days and their sequence
over a week and then an extended period.