BUTTERFLY UNIT

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 CRAFT

INSTRUCTIONS

  Plastic Bag  Butterflies

Materials:  Gallon size plastic sealable bag, pipe cleaner, and colorful miscellaneous items to fill inside.  Ideas include: crete paper, ribbon, scrap fabric, sprinkles, beads, pompoms, foam objects, colored feathers, colored tissue paper, crumpled wrapping paper.

This is my ultimate favorite butterfly craft.  I make this activity with my students each year.  It takes only minutes to make but I stretch it out to last a lot longer!  The craft is a great sensory and language activity.  Use items with a variety of textures.  Let children feel each object before placing in the bag.  You can work on action words like "cutting", "pulling", "shaking", and "squeezing".    Once each child has finished placing objects inside begin to shut the bag.  At the very corner "blow" a little air inside the bag until it inflates slightly.  Then finish sealing.  Gather the bag in the middle and wrap a pipecleaner around the center.  You have a beautiful butterfly to hang up on a window or wall!!

 Hand/Foot Butterfly

Materials:  Colored construction paper, pencil, scissors, pipe cleaner, markers/crayons, glue, and tape.  Optional items include craft eyes and pompoms for a nose.

In the springtime everything grows... including children!  Capture a child's unique transformation by having them make a butterfly from their own hand and footprint.  Trace a child's foot one time on a piece of construction paper for the butterfly's body.  Then trace a child's hand on several sheets of construction paper.  You will need six "hands" all together.  Cut out all of the tracings.  Glue the handprints to the backside of the butterfly body.  There should be three hands on each side.  Fingers should face outward. Fold a pipe cleaner in half and tape to the backside of the top of the "foot" body.  Have each child draw eyes, a nose, and a mouth.  This butterfly will surely be a keeper for years to come.  Make sure to date the back!

 Coffee Filter Butterfly

Materials: coffee filters, pipe cleaners, watercolors, clothespins.  Optional: craft eyes and pompoms, glue, magnet strip.

Give each student a coffee filter and a tray of watercolors.  Have students paint their coffee filter.  Dry the coffee filter overnight or dry with a blowdryer in seconds.  Next, cut a pipe cleaner in half and place it in the top of the clothespin.  Then, gather the coffe filter in the center and clip into the clothespin.  I like to add some character to the butterfly by placing eyes and a nose on the butterfly's body.  Make this craft extra special and glue a magnetic strip to the back of the butterfly's body.  This will make a cheery magnet for the refrigerator!

 Paper Plate Butterfly Life Cycle

Click on pic to enlarge

Materials: 10 in. or 9 in. white paper plate, light colored construction paper, uncooked pasta (orzo or rice, large shell, rotini, bowtie), watercolors, black marker, glue, scissors, three small sticks, 2 leaves, 1 wildflower.

Trace and cut out a 8 in. or a 9 in. circle on a piece of construction paper.  Glue down in the center of the plate.  Take the black marker and draw two lines to divide the plate into four sections.  Next, label the outer edges of the plate with the stages of the butterfly's life cycle.  Have the children paint their rotini green for the caterpillar and their shell green for the chrysalis.  Have children paint the butterfly their favorite color.  Glue the orzo or rice on a leaf in the egg stage.  Glue the rotini on a leaf in the caterpillar stage.  Glue the large shell pasta underneath the stick for in the chrysalis stage.  Then glue the bowtie pasta to represent the beautiful transformation into a butterfly. 

*This project provides a wonderful visual demonstration to help kids explain how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly.

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