Butterfly Life Cycle Craft DIY

This colorful craft doubles as a tool you can use to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly! You can create these cards at home using paper from the Print Palooza pack, some recycled materials and a bit of nature from your backyard!

Supplies: 

• Print Palooza paper

• Cardboard

• Thin sticks from your yard or the park

• Paint

• Scissors

• Hot glue gun (always ask an adult for help when using a hot glue gun!)

• Arts and Crafts Library items: Pom poms, googly eyes, fuzzy sticks

• Optional: Alphabet stamps or stickers to label your cards

 

Steps:

1. Cut four equal-sized squares of cardboard. Our squares were 6 inches long on each side.  Choose four colors of Kid Made Modern paint and paint each square with one of the four colors.

2. Create the EGG card. To create the egg card, begin by breaking one of your sticks into a piece that fits on your cardboard square. Use hot glue to attach the stick to the card diagonally across the middle. Find a section of green paper in your Print Palooza pack and cut some leaf shapes from it (one large leaf and a couple of small ones). Glue the paper leaves onto the cardboard and stick. Finally, turn 2-3 googly eyes upside down and glue them onto the large leaf! These will be your caterpillar eggs! You can choose to label this card “eggs” if you want to.

 

3. Create the CATERPILLAR card. To create the caterpillar card, glue another piece of stick across the middle of a cardboard square. Choose a color of pom pom you like and glue 5-6 pom poms just above the stick to create your caterpillar. Choose two tiny googly eyes from your Arts and Crafts Library and glue them onto the end pom pom. Cut a short piece of a pipe cleaner and bend it in half to create an antenna. Glue these at the top of the caterpillar’s head. Finally, cut a few more leaves from your Print Palooza paper and glue them onto the stick.

4. Create the PUPA card. A pupa is what a caterpillar is called when it is transforming into a butterfly. Pupa are wrapped in a cocoon or chrysalis. For this card, you will create the chrysalis, or covering, that the pupa transforms inside of.

To create this card, glue a piece of a stick towards the top of your cardboard square. Cut a few leaves from your Print Palooza paper and glue them onto the stick. Choose a different color of paper and cut out a rectangle shape, about 2 inches by 3 inches. Fold in the corners of your shape to create your chrysalis - there is no exact way to do this! Keep folding until it is a shape you like and glue the chrysalis just under the stick, like it is hanging off. Cut a tiny piece of a pipe cleaner and glue it between the stick and chrysalis to “attach” the chrysalis to the branch.

5. Create the BUTTERFLY card. For the butterfly card, begin by choosing a color of paper for the wings. Cut a square from the paper that is a little bit smaller than your cardboard squares. Fold the square in half and cut a heart shape on the fold (the bottom of the heart shape will be where the fold in the paper is). Open your shape and glue your butterfly wings onto the cardboard. Glue a piece of stick vertically down the middle to be the butterfly’s body. Glue a pom pom at the top for his head and two googly eyes and a piece of pipe cleaner antenna (like the caterpillar). You can also add a few other decorations using your Arts and Crafts Library or Print Palooza pad!

Add a little STEAM!

Use your butterfly life cycle cards to help you learn more about how butterflies grow! 

• Practice the steps of the butterfly life cycle by mixing your cards up and then trying to put them in the correct order: eggs, caterpillar, pupa, butterfly!

• Go on a butterfly walk in your yard or a nearby park. See how many of the four different stages of the butterfly life cycle you can find in real life! Look in areas where there are many flowers and leaves (that’s where butterflies like to hang out!) Have an adult help you take photos of what you find.

• Did you know that all animals go through a life cycle and they are all very unique? Have a grown-up help you do some research about animals will cool life cycles like frogs, ladybugs and sea turtles. See if you can design your own set of cards for a different animal’s life cycle using your Kid Made Modern supplies! You can then compare and contrast the other life cycles with the butterfly life cycle.

This post is by Emily Limer from Making with Mommy! Follow her on Instagram for more kids craft and STEAM ideas!

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