This document describes a learning activity for kindergarten students based on Jean Piaget's cognitive developmental theory. The activity uses the story "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" to teach language arts, science, and math concepts while aligning with Piaget's ideas of active learning, social interaction, and developing schemas through experience. The activity provides opportunities for students to practice skills like counting, sequencing events, identifying letters and words, observing life cycles, and developing the concept of conservation in a meaningful way according to their developmental level.

1. Activity Alignment with
Piaget’s Cognitive
Developmental Theory
Team A:
Alice Allen, Amanda Pegues, Emily
Carter, Shari Hardy, Bobbi Murrell

2. Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
(Bee & Boyd, 2004)
• Piaget considered children to be active
participants in the development of their own
knowledge
• Proposed that children are born with basic
schemes (basic actions of knowing) and
incorporate new schemes during life through:
– Assimilation
• absorbing new experiences into existing schemas
– Accommodation
• modification of existing schemes as a result of new
information
– Equilibration
• restructuring of schemes
2

3. Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
(Bee & Boyd, 2004)
• Developed 4 stages in which
children’s learning evolves:
– Sensorimotor
• Birth to 18 months
– Preoperational stage
• 18 months to age 6
– Concrete operations stage
• Ages 6-12
– Formal operations stage
• Adolescence
3

4. Piaget and the Classroom
(Bee & Boyd, 2004)
• Piaget believed there were two
environmental factors which
led to stage progression:
– Social transmission
• Information the child gets from
other people such as peers and
teachers
– Experience
• The child’s actions on the world and
his vision of the results
• School exposes children to
many opportunities for social
transmission and experience
4

5. Application of Piaget’s Theory to
Classroom
• According to the National Association for
the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
(1993):
A principle of practice for primary-age children is that
the curriculum provide many developmentally appropriate
materials for children to explore and think about and
opportunities for interaction and communication with
other children and adults, Similarly, the content of the
curriculum must be relevant engaging, and meaningful to
the children themselves (p.64).
5

6. Learning Activity for Kindergarten:
Language Arts, Science and Math
THE VERY HUNGRY
CATERPILLAR
6

7. Learning Outcomes
Students will:
• Remember the days of the week through meaningful interaction
and questioning
• Develop schemas in relation to phonics, language arts, and
nature’s life cycles
• Exercise observation skills by watching larvae turn into a
butterfly through the use of a butterfly kit and streaming
videos
• Reinforce counting ability by charting the number of foods the
caterpillar ate and providing manipulatives for exploration of
numbers
– “Students' use of materials helps to build their mathematical confidence by
giving them a way to test and confirm their reasoning” (Ojose, 2008, p. 28).
• Develop emerging skills with conservation
– “Conservation is the understanding that the quantity of a substance remains
the same even when its appearance changes” (Bee & Boyd, 2004, p. 155)
7

8. Teacher Planning
Resources for Language Resources for Math:
Arts: 1. Weekly calendar chart
1. The Very Hungry 2. Numbers for how many
Caterpillar by Eric Carle foods the caterpillar ate
2. Felt board for pictures of before he made his cocoon
caterpillar, larvae and
butterflies Resources for Science:
3. Magazines with pictures 1. Pictures of the life cycle
of different foods to of the butterfly
illustrate what was eaten
2. Varied materials for
4. Cards for first letters of children to develop their
each of the foods the own representation of the
caterpillar ate life cycle of the butterfly
5. Pocket chart to hold
letters
8

9. • Read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle
and discuss the story
Language Arts
• Have children make predictions before the book is
read and connections after the book is read to
assess their understanding of material
• Talk about days of the week
– Make the days of the week meaningful to the children
by having them discuss what they do on certain days
of the week
• Ask questions about student’s knowledge of
caterpillars and butterflies
– Make a KWL chart, writing what the children know,
what they want to know, and what they have learned
• Provide various activities for students to
demonstrate their knowledge of the story
– Have children pull out letters to match to the food
that begins with that letter, practicing phonics
– Have children talk about their favorite foods and
what they would have eaten if they were the hungry
caterpillar
– Supply materials at centers so that children can
explore sequencing of the story, magazines with
pictures of food, journals to write and draw about
life cycles
9

10. Math
• Graph the number of foods the
caterpillar ate under each day of
the week
• Chart the number of foods the
caterpillar ate on the chalkboard
• Develop conservation concept
– Discuss that although the caterpillar
goes through stages, he is still only
one caterpillar
• Provide manipulatives to represent
the number of foods the
caterpillar ate
10

11. Science
• Have the students sequence pictures
of the life cycle of a butterfly
• Apply the pictures in order to the
bulletin board so that the classroom
can discuss the changes the
caterpillar goes through
• Make this activity meaningful to the
children by explaining to them the
stages a human goes through
• Ask the children to relate their
experiences with butterflies and
caterpillars
11

12. Activity in relationship to Piaget’s
Theory
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar activity
helps children learn while they are in
Piaget’s preoperational stage of
development
• Children will begin to learn conservation,
counting, days of the week, phonics,
reading comprehension, and the life
cycle of a caterpillar
• Through varied materials the teacher
will enrich the environment making the
activity more meaningful to the
students
• Allowing the children to work together
and share their observations will
increase opportunities for social
transmission
12

13. Piaget’s Theory:
Building Schemas Regarding Nature and
Conservation
• This activity helps children to build their
schema regarding insects and nature
• Children will learn conservation:
– Even though the caterpillar changes to a
butterfly there is still only one creature
13

14. Construction of Knowledge Frameworks
• Children construct frameworks of
knowledge within which he or she
organizes the specific bits
– Learning phonics, such as the sound
the letter C makes, will reinforce
these frameworks
14

15. Enriching the Environment
• The teacher must provide a rich environment in
which children can construct their own schemas:
– Supply pictures which show the stages of human growth
paired with pictures of the stages of the caterpillars
transformation
– Provide pretend food which children can handle
– Place posters in room with the months and days of the week
– Provide bulletin and felt boards where children can post the
food eaten by the caterpillar
– Supply magazines and varied materials so that children can
draw and write about their own preferences for food
– Manipulatives should be available for children to use in
counting and sorting
15

16. Social Interaction
• The teacher must provide an
environment where social
interaction occurs
• According to the NAEYC (1993):
“The relevant principle of practice is that
teachers recognize the importance of
developing positive peer group relationships
and provide opportunities and support for
cooperative small group projects that not
only develop cognitive ability but promote
peer interaction” (p. 64)
• Teachers should:
• Break children into groups to discuss
the activity
• Discussing pieces of the activity as a
whole group encouraging children to
share personal knowledge and
experience of the topic 16

17. Teachers Provide an Active Approach to
Learning
• Interaction between the student and teacher is important
to create a cooperative relationship
– “…the objective is to establish curricula that simultaneously match
aspects of the child’s existing schemata and that move beyond the
child’s current understanding. This active approach to learning
allows the child to assimilate material while at the same time leading
the child to modify existing schemata to accommodate the
discrepant material” (Downs, Liben, & Daggs, 1988, p. 684)
• Children will learn rules and morals about what is expected
• The teacher will facilitate discussions transmitting
information from her own schema to the children for
assimilation and accommodation
17

18. Conclusion
• This activity illustrates Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory
through the provision of:
– Developmentally appropriate practices
– Making learning meaningful for the children
– Opportunities for social transmission and working in the
environment
• Children are allowed to be active in their own learning through:
– Discussions with the teacher
– Conversations with classmates
– Manipulative usage
– Creation of their own projects to match understanding of the
material
• “The work of Piaget has demonstrated that learning is a complex
process that results from the interaction of the children’s own
thinking and their experiences in the external world” (NAEYC,
1993, p. 51)
18

19. References
Arlin, P. (1990, October). Teaching as conversation. Educational
Leadership, 48(2),82. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from MasterFILE
Premier database.
Bee, H., & Boyd, D. (2004). The developing child. Allyn and Bacon: Pearson
Education, Inc. Available from the University of Phoenix eBook
Collection database.
Downs, R., Liben, L., & Daggs, D. (1988, December). On education and
geographers: The role of cognitive developmental theory in geographic
education. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 78(4),
680-700. Retrieved November 28, 2008, from Academic Search
Complete database.
National Association for the Education of Young Children. (1993).
Developmentally appropriate practices in early childhood programs
serving children from birth through age 8. Washington, D.C.: NAEYC.
Ojose, B. (2008, Summer). Applying Piaget's Theory of Cognitive
Development to Mathematics Instruction. Mathematics Educator, 18(1),
26-30. Retrieved November 28, 2008, from Education Research
Complete database.
19