Bugs Aren’t Enough… We Must Have Butterflies!

At my house we’ve been doing many of the bug crafts that I blogged about last week, but my five year old wasn’t very happy to be doing bugs… she wants to do butterflies.  And what self-respecting five year old girl wouldn’t want to do butterfly crafts?

So now we have butterflies!

Baggie Butterflies - This craft was also send in by a visitor. Fill a sandwich bag with scraps of tissue paper, aluminum foil, or colored cellophane. Don’t over fill. Gather the bag around the middle with a pipe cleaner to make the body and twist the ends to make the antennae.

Inkblot Butterfly - Fold a piece of construction paper in half and cut out a butterfly shape. Open it up and paint one side of the paper. Fold it over and rub lightly, then unfold to create the butterfly. Let dry and then you can glue it to a large craft stick or tongue depresser so the kids can play with it. You can also go a step further and glue on antennae.

Butterfly Flier Craft - This is a very different tp roll craft than most.   It ends up “larger than life” (about one square foot) and is fun to play with.  If you look closely at the photo, you can see the tp roll in the center of the butterfly’s body… that will give you a feel for the size of the finished craft.   Pull the yarn (takes two people) and the butterfly will fly between the players. 

Friendship Butterflies This is a great project for more than one child or for a child’s party. Trace both of each child’s hands and cut them out. Have each child exchange one of their cut out hands with another child. Tape the two hands together to make butterfly wings. Decorate the wings with paint, markers, glitter, etc. For older children, glue the hands onto a painted toilet paper tube or clothespin so that the friendship butterfly will have a body.

Egg Carton Caterpillar - Cut a section of 4 egg cups from an egg carton. Paint and let dry. Draw on a face with black marker.  When the kids aren’t looking, attach a pipe cleaner for anetennas, make butterfly wings, and attach them to the caterpillar.  Now put the butterfly you’ve created in a paper bag.  When the child returns to retreive their caterpillar, tell them it has made a cocoon (the paper bag).  Then if a few days, let them open the bag and see that the caterpillar has turned into a butterfly. 

I saw a teacher do all this with a pre-school class once and it made a huge impact on the kids.

I’m finding a ton of other butterfly crafts, so I think I’ll split this into two posts.  Let me know if you have a butterfly idea that should be included in the next post!