Sweet Cocoon

Ages: 5-11
Contributor:
Sam Collins

When a weevil and a cockroach come across a struggling caterpillar, they team up to help her.

Watch this video with your children and then try some of our teaching and activity ideas below.

Teaching Ideas and Resources:

Stop the video at 0:12 and ask the children to predict what they think will happen next.
Write some dialogue between the insects.
Collect vocabulary that could be used to describe the setting.
Make a collection of fiction and non-fiction about butterflies, for example, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Are You a Butterfly?
Stop the film at 1:49, and write thought bubbles for the weevil and the cockroach.
Invent some alternative titles for the film.
Make a graph showing how the feelings of one of the characters change throughout the film.
Write a fact sheet showing who a butterfly really changes into a cocoon.
Write a story where the weevil and cockroach team up again to help another insect.
The makers of the film said that “The idea was to create a natural universe on a completely different planet, while remaining close to our own“. Discuss this quote with the children. Does it change their opinion about the film? Do they think that the film-makers have achieved that aim?

Challenge children to explain how a caterpillar really turns into a cocoon? Use our resources to help.
Research the life cycles of weevils and cockroaches. What are the similarities and differences between them and butterflies?
Make a presentation showing the features of insects.
Research and create a poster about fungi. This Kiddle page is a good place to start.
Try making your own pulley to lift an object.
Watch the section from 2:45 to 3:04 where the caterpillar is made into a sort of catapult. Try making your own from lolly sticks.
Watch the section from 4:50 to 4:55 and have a go at tracing your own shadows.

Watch the film’s trailer (below). Create a plan for your own trailer – which scenes would you include?

Print some simple symmetrical butterflies.
Make some observational drawings of fungi, have a look at some of Beatrix Potter’s works for inspiration.
Compare some butterflies in art, for example, look at van Gogh’s Butterflies and Poppies and Dali’s Landscape with Butterflies.
The artist J.A. M.Whistler created a signature by making his initials into a butterfly. Ask the children to create their own artistic signatures using their initials.

In the film, the insects do not give up. They try lots of different ways to solve the problem. Ask the children to give an example of when they have been persistent like this.
Discuss how the insects worked as a team. What would have happened if they had not cooperated?