From Caterpillar to Butterfly

This week was crazy busy around here with so many non-homeschooling activities going on. We did manage to accomplish school most of the days, but not all. However, I feel like we accomplished what needed to be accomplished, and we had a lot of fun learning about butterflies.

The theme for this lesson was "God can make me new". Just as God makes a new creation when he forms a butterfly from a caterpillar, he also makes us new creations when we are in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). We talked about what that meant and ways that we can demonstrate that concept in our lives.

My printer was out of ink all week so I was unable to print off any extra butterfly-themed worksheets/activities, except for one. I felt like we had enough activities to do without them, even though there were several other great ideas I had found online to do.

Butterfly snacks made from apples, carrots, grapes, and raisins

This was the one page I had printed prior to my ink depletion.
One side of this butterfly was already drawn and Madison had to draw the other side to look the same.
(www.tlsbooks.com)

We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle and Madison created her own version of the book.

Showing the egg on a leaf

A caterpillar is born, and he eats through one strawberry...

...two blueberries and three watermelons...

...four ice cream cones and five chickens...

...six apples, and then he builds his cocoon.

In the end, a beautiful butterfly emerges.

"Fancy Nancy Bonjour, Butterfly" by Jane O'Connor

"The Butterfly Alphabet" by Kjell B. Sandved - an AWESOME book where we could see each letter of the alphabet hidden in the patterns of real butterfly wings.

We made our lowercase "b" into a butterfly.
(the idea for the letter "b" butterfly was from http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2010/06/now-i-know-my-abcs-b-is-for-butterfly.html, but I did modify our version a little)

All great books that talked about the life cycle of a butterfly:

"Bella: A Butterfly's Story" by Joanne Randolph
"The Life Cycle of a Butterfly" by Colleen A. Sexton
"Caterpillar to Butterfly" by Camilla de la Bedoyere

We made a craft depicting the life cycle of a butterfly.
Egg: I cut out some leaves and the kids glued hole-punched pieces of paper on them.
Caterpillar: I cut an egg carton in half and the kids painted it. We added pipe cleaners for the antennas.
Pupa: I cut an egg carton into a section of three, and glued two of those sections together. The kids painted them brown and we hung them from a tree branch.
Butterfly: Another three-section from an egg carton, painted and glued onto construction paper wings.

Madison's life cycle of a butterfly craft

One final activity that we did to demonstrate the life cycle of a butterfly was a reenactment. I had the kids curl up in a tight ball for the egg stage. Then when they became caterpillars, they slowly unfolded and crawled around on their bellies pretending to eat a lot. They made their cocoon out of a blanket and covered up with it. When they emerged from their cocoon, they wore my daughter's dress-up butterfly wings. They absolutely loved this game and we played it many times over. Even today, having moved on from our butterfly lesson, they still asked if they could play the "butterfly game". They definitely have a good grasp on a butterfly's life cycle now!