Caterpillars and Butterflies!

Caterpillars and Butterflies

Projects and Learning Activities

Caterpillar Patterns

I cut out circles from two different colors of construction paper.

Tana and Joey made the AB pattern and glued the circles onto a half sheet of paper to make the caterpillar.  We added facial features and feet to finish the project.

Plastic Egg Caterpillar

Here is another fun pattern activity.  

I separated plastic Easter eggs (2 colors for each child).

We strung two pipe cleaners through the holes in the plastic eggs.  I secured the ends by twisting the pipe cleaners.  Tana and Joey worked hard to make their AB patterns.  We glued on googly eyes and bent the pipe cleaner to make the caterpillar's antenna.

We used 9 full plastic eggs for each caterpillar.  The end egg is a full egg. the rest of the caterpillar is made from plastic egg halves.

Hand Print Butterfly

Cut out a body for the butterfly from black construction paper.

Glue on googly eyes and pipe cleaner antenna.

Paint both hands red and press onto yellow paper.

Repeat with blue paint.  

When the hand prints are dry, cut around the prints and glue the hand prints to the back of the body to make the butterfly's wings.

Clothespin and Tulle Butterfly
Paint a clothespin - any color
Let dry and then decorate with markers, more paint or foam stickers!
Cut any color tulle to fit for the wings. I had leftover pink tulle that was already cut into smaller pieces!
Cut a pipe cleaner into a 5 inch piece.  Fold it in half.
Open the clothespin and place the tulle inside.  Do the same with the pipe cleaner.

Band Aid Butterflies

Use a square piece of gauze and press a colorful band aid over it to make a butterfly.  Draw on the antenna for each butterfly!

Keely's Project

Tana and Joey!

Butterfly Life Cycle

I cut out leaf shapes from green paper

Explain the butterfly life cycle

Glue 4 leaves to a strip of construction paper.

On the first leaf glue on a small bean for the egg

On the 2nd leaf glue on a spiral noodle for the caterpillar

On the 3rd leaf glue on a piece of shell pasta for the chrysalis

on the 4th leaf glue on bow-tie pasta for the butterfly.

I also printed off labels to glue on to each leaf!

Butterfly Name and Numbers

Skills:  number order, number recognition

name recognition, letter recognition

I cut out butterfly shapes from construction paper

I wrote the numbers 1-5 for Tana and Joey's name for Joey!

They glued their butterfly cut-outs to their strips of paper.

Paper Chain Caterpillar

Skills:  patterns, colors

Cut strips of colored paper 

Link the strips together in a pattern to make a Caterpillar!

Cut skinny strips for the antenna and draw on facial features

Butterfly Matching - File Folder Game

This is one of my File Folder games.  I've shown it on my blog a couple of times.  This is a great matching activity!!

Here is the original link to this Beautiful Butterflies Matching Activity

Hand Print and Name Butterflies

Paint both hands with two different colors

Press both hands onto a piece of construction paper.  You can overlap the thumbs

When dry, draw on the butterfly body and write the child's name!

Butterfly Fun!

Butterfly Fun

Butterfly Projects
 

Footprint Butterflies

Paint feet with water color paint

Press onto white paper

Let dry and draw the body and antenna with marker

 * I accidently had the blue butterflies flipped the wrong way when I was drawing the bodies and antenna on each of them.  They are upside down - oops!*
 

Folded Painted Butterflies
Draw a butterfly onto white paper and cut it out
Paint one half of the butterfly
Fold the butterfly in half and press together
Unfold and let dry


Snack Bag Butterflies
Glue pom pom's onto a clothespin
Fill a baggie 3/4 full with some sort of snacks
Divide the filled baggie in half and wrap it with a pipe cleaner
Pinch the clothespin around the pipe cleaner and the filled baggie
Twist the ends of the pipe cleaner to make antenna

Cardboard Tube Butterflies
Cover a cardboard tube with decorative paper
Cut wings out of decorative paper and tape to the back of the tube
Glue on googly eyes
Glue pipe cleaner antenna to the inside, front of the cardboard tube.

 

Sugar Cookie Butterflies

 We divided the dough into 4 balls and added a different color of food coloring to each ball.  We mixed each ball and then combined the 4 balls to make one large ball of dough.  The girls helped me roll out the dough.  They took turns pressing the butterfly cookie cutter into the colorful dough!

 

 

 

 

Butterfly Learning Activities

Butterfly Patterns
Cut out different colored butterflies from construction paper
Make your own butterfly patterns - glue on to a piece of construction paper

 

 

Big, Bigger, Biggest Butterflies

I printed 3 different size butterflies

Addie colored each butterfly and cut each one out

She glued the words big, bigger and biggest to the bottom of purple construction paper

She glued the corresponding butterfly above it's matching word

 

 

Butterfly Life Cycle Book and Wheel

Here is the link to this Butterfly Life Cycle Wheel and Book

 

 

 

Butterfly Matching - File Folder Game

Here is the link to the Beautiful Butterflies File Folder Game

 

 

 



Painted Hand Butterfly!

This project idea comes from the May 2012 issue of Family Fun magazine. 

Addie and Tana each painted a piece of white paper using water color paint.  When the paint was dry I folded the paper in half, and traced both of their hands.  Then I cut out the shape!  Materials Needed:  white paper, paint brush, water color paint, scissors, pencil

Symmetrical Butterfly!

Project:  Symmetrical Butterfly!  Cut a butterfly shape out of white paper and fold in half.  Paint one half of the butterfly with paint. Fold the butterfly in half and press the two halves together.  Unfold and let dry!

Materials Needed:  white paper, paint, paint brush, scissors

Butterfly Book!

Connor is done with Kindergarten and excited for summer vacation.  Today was his first day home with us - he was able to sleep in and do projects with us again!!
Project:  Butterfly Book!  (Source:  The Mailbox Magazine  - Kindergarten-Grade 1, April/May 2007)
In advance make a supply of white butterfly-shaped pages.  Make a colored butterfly-shaped  cover for the books.  Cut out a butterfly shaped body and two antennae out of black paper. 
1. Brainstorm adjectives to describe butterflies. 
2.  Give each child a page and have him create a butterfly illustration. 
3.  Help him complete the following prompt -  _____________'s butterfly is _______________.
4.  Bind the book or books together and title the book and decorate the front cover.

*You can make one book or individual books for each child. 

Clothespin-Coffee Filter Butterflies

We have made Coffee Filter Butterflies before, but this time we used clothespins instead of pipe cleaners.  Check out our other Coffee Filter Butterfly from 2009. 
Project:  Clothespin-Coffee Filter Butterflies   Paint a coffee filter with watercolor paints.  Paint a clothespin black and sprinkle with glitter.  Let dry.  Bunch the coffee filter up - starting in the middle and working to the outside.  Secure with the clothespin. 
Materials Needed:  coffee filter, clothespin, watercolor paint, glitter, black paint, paintbrush

Heart Butterfly!

The theme today is Valentines Day!
Project:  Heart Butterfly! 
Directions:  Cut two larger hearts out of construction paper, cut smaller hearts out of construction paper.  Glue the points of each larger heart together to make a the butterfly.  Glue the smaller hearts on the butterfly!  Draw a face.  Bend a chenille stem to make the butterfly antenna's and secure with tape or glue! 

Materials Needed:  purple, red , pink construction paper, scissors, glue stick, markers, chenille stems

Ants, purple and butterflies again!

Day 1 of our week -- Our theme is still bugs and the color of the week is purple.

Activity 1 - The kids first "school" activity was writing the letter h and r. They did a great job writing the letters. I knew they would since they both have r's in their names. We used the worksheet Printing Practice -worksheet 5 from the website http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/

Activity 2 - The 2nd activity used another worksheet from http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/ They completed The Color Purple worksheet. Connor and Lauren colored the picture and traced the word purple.

Activity 3 - The 3rd activity was a worksheet that I created called Purple Flowers. Connor and Lauren cut and pasted the flowers onto the correct vases according to the number beneath the vases. This worksheet emphasized cutting, pasting, counting, one-to-one matching and following directions.

Projects - We did 2 projects today. The kids made ants on a piece of construction paper that I folded into 4ths. The first 4th said "1 ant" The 2nd 4th said, "2 ants" The 3rd 4th said, "3 ants" and the last 4th said, "4! Ants, ants, ants galore!" Connor and Lauren used a q-tip pressed on a black stamp pad to make the bodies of the ant. Each ant had 3 ink circles for the body. I drew the antennae and legs with a Sharpie marker.

The 2nd project was a coffee filter butterfly. Connor and Lauren painted their coffee filter with water color paints. Once the paint dried, they picked out a colored pipe cleaner and I wrapped it around the middle of the coffee filter and formed antennae for the butterfly.

Again, they wanted to do more projects - they love making things and then playing with them.

Butterflies, blue and bugs!

Day 3 of our week -- Our theme is bugs and the color of the week is blue.

Project - Today, we made butterfly sun catchers to go a long with our bug theme. I found the idea in the August 2006 Parents magazine. I modified the idea from a kite suncatcher to a butterfly. I drew my own template for the butterfly and the kids and I used an old pencil sharpener to make crayon shavings. I then, melted the crayon shavings between two pieces of wax paper and placed the wax paper between 2 old dishtowels. I pressed the towel covered wax paper with and iron set on low to medium, until the crayons and wax paper had melted together. We then took the butterfly templates I drew and traced them onto construction paper ( 2 pieces) and glued them onto the cooled wax paper. Finally we cut the remaining overhanging wax paper and hung them on our window! ( you could add antennae -using string, or pipe cleaners)
Activity 1 - It was our third and final day with the color blue. I made a math worksheet with blue butterflies ( which also went with our art project) Connor and Lauren matched the sets of butterflies with the correct number. This emphasized one to one correspondence with counting and fine motor skills with drawing straight lines to the correct number!
Activity 2 - I also made a worksheet that emphasized beginning sounds. We have been working on this for a couple of weeks now. We talk about sounds throughout the day, just in our daily language, but this worksheet is a fun way to work on the sounds too. Again this activity emphasized beginning sounds, and fine motor skills (drawing circles and matching)
Activity 3 - Our final activity is practicing writing letters and words. I use the website http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/ for this. We finished Printing Practice worksheet 4 today. I spread this worksheet out over the 3 days we do school. Today we finished with the letter m and the word sum. Connor and Lauren love learning how to write letters and especially write real words. Of course, Connor had to tell me that he already new how to make the letter M!!

Sewing Butterfly and green again!

Day 3 of our week - The theme of the week is bugs and the color of the week is green.

Activity 1- Connor and Lauren practiced writing the word did from the worksheet Printing Practice -worksheet 3. This worksheet is from the website http://www.worksheetuniverse.com/

Activity 2- I made a turtle counting worksheet that went along with our green color of the week. The activity asked Connor and Lauren to count the turtles in each row and then circle the correct number. This activity emphasized counting, one-to-one correspondence and number recognition.

Activity 3- I made a beginning sounds worksheet. Connor and Lauren had to circle the correct beginning sound for the pictures of a turtle, balloons, and light bulb. They are really good at their beginning sounds. This activity not only helps with sounds, but also letter recognition. They know almost all of their upper and lower case letter now. Just a few give them trouble!

Project - I got the idea for our project from the website www.prekinders.com/themes.htm under the bug section. I cut out a butterfly shape from a manila file folder. Connor and Lauren decorated their butterfly with markers. I then punched holes around the perimeter of the butterfly with a hole puncher. Finally, they used yarn and "sewed" it through the holes. I had to help them at the start. My only suggestion is to spread the holes farther a part for younger kids, because it can be a pretty time-consuming project.