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This month we are featuring books by Eric Carle for our Virtual Book Club for Kids! Eric Carle's birthday is on June 25th so you can have fun doing these activities all month long!
Today we are sharing a simple butterfly craft for toddlers and preschoolers to go along with The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.
Typically we always do caterpillar crafts when we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar but since my kids love the last page of the book so much that features the caterpillar turning into a butterfly... we thought we'd do a butterfly craft this month! My kids have been really interested in using our Do-A-Dot markers lately, so we decided to add them into this activity.
Materials Needed: color construction paper, white cardstock, Do-A-Dot markers (or just regular markers... or crayons), scissors, pipe cleaners, glue or tape
Directions:
To start off for this butterfly craft I just had my kids decorate a piece of paper with markers! The toddler just painted all over while the preschooler painted on one side of the paper and then folded the paper in half so that the other side had the same designs. She also did another version where she tried to paint the same picture on each side. It was fascinating to watch and see where each mark went.
Next I cut out a butterfly shape from the dried paintings by just folding the paper in half.
After that I cut out another butterfly outline that was slightly bigger (using the other butterfly image).
Next we taped pipe cleaner antennae to the top of the butterfly and then the kiddos glued or taped the painted butterfly onto the paper butterfly. We mostly secured the pictures down the middle so that the paper wings looked like they were popping off the walls.
After the butterflies were done the kids loved making them fly around the house and then hanging them up to show off.
Do you have any other favorite butterfly or caterpillar crafts you can share with me?
If you've done a book related activity that goes along with one of Eric Carle's books, come link it up below! We'd love to check it out and share it on our Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook page and our Virtual Book Club for Kids Pinterest Board.
Smart mom, smart blog. I like this simple activity and we love Eric Carle books. Pinning, pinning, pinning:-)
Such a great idea! Consider adding your post (and others!) to our Learn Through Play Hop. We are open all month long!
suchamama.com/2014/06/02/learn-through-play-hop-11/
I love using dot markers with young kids and this is such a great way to do it – will have a try next time we've got them out with T.
Very beautiful butterflies! 🙂