Butterfly Life Cycle Play

Create the Butterfly Life Cycle Play with your child. Read facts about the butterfly life cycle using this worksheet as you create your butterfly eggs, caterpillars, cocoons, and butterflies. When it is complete, let your child play!

What You Need for this Craft:

cardboard box
print the Butterfly Life Cycle Worksheet
green and blue paint for the ground and sky
paint brush
assorted colors of construction paper, pom pom balls, tissue paper to create flowers OR flower stickers
toilet paper roll, paper towel roll, green construction paper, and green tissue paper to create trees with leaves
cotton balls for clouds
scissors
glue

Butterfly Egg Craft:

small amount of yellow play dough or clay rolled into tiny balls for the eggs (If you do not have play dough or clay, you could draw the eggs on with markers or crayons.)
glue

Caterpillar Craft

pipe cleaners
scissors

Cocoon Craft

tissue paper to create the cocoon
a pipe cleaner caterpillar
glue

Butterfly Craft

small piece of construction paper for butterfly body
tissue paper cut to create butterfly wings
scissors

butterfly life cycle play craft

caterpillar and eggs

butterfly eggs

butterfly life cycle play craft with hand

Teaching Tip: You do not have to complete this all in one day. Try splitting the project up into different parts. Talk about each part each day. This will help the task not seem so overwhelming to young ones. Since it is revisited over multiple days, your child will be able to recall the project better!

Butterfly Life Cycle Facts

Butterfly Eggs are tiny and yellow! Butterfly mommies lay the eggs on the underside of leaves because when the eggs hatch, the babies will eat leaves. What hatches from butterfly eggs? Caterpillars!

Caterpillars are small, hungry bugs. Some caterpillars are furry. There are many different colors of caterpillars. They eat leaves and get fatter. After a week or two, the caterpillars create a cocoon.

Cocoons, or chrysalises, are like protective houses to keep caterpillars safe until they transform into butterflies. Cocoons come in lots of different colors. Five to twenty-one days later, the butterfly cuts a hole in the cocoon and shows off its beautiful wings!

Butterflies will usually wait a few hours for their wings to dry before flying. They have four wings. Butterflies drink nectar from flowers for energy. When they drink the nectar, the butterflies are also helping the flowers to grow more flowers! Sometimes butterflies will eat fruit. One day, these butterflies will lay tiny, yellow eggs on the undersides of leaves!

Encouragement: Education is best when it is also play!

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Infant Toddler/Preschool Elementary