May 13: The Life Cycle of a Butterfly

This week's project was decided upon earlier this week by Tysen after Koen came home from school with a butterfly life cycle set.  Koen's class has had caterpillars in their care for the past few weeks and watched the whole life cycle process, even setting the new butterflies free.  Along the way they made a book and finally did a project to help remember everything that happened along the way.  After seeing Koen's life cycle set, Ty wanted to make one, too.  (Once again, none of this was my idea...we completely copied Koen's teacher!)

I love it when things work out so beautifully!  We had a library book home this week all about the life cycle of a butterfly:  A Butterfly Grows by Stephen Swinburne!  Tysen and I read the book and made the project simultaneously...it was perfect!  He can actually talk you through the life cycle using his project.  Having The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle as background knowledge probably helped a little bit, but I'm still impressed. 

Beads on a pipe cleaner
to create the caterpillar.

We started with a puff ball for the egg.  Next we took part of a pipe clearer and Ty threaded beads on it to create a caterpillar.  I was going to have him work on a pattern, but the jumbo bag of beads I have didn't have enough similar beads to even try to create a pattern, so we just went with the colorful variety.  We then took a green piece of paper that I'd cut into the shape of a leaf and Ty punched holes in it to show the caterpillar ate the leaf.  Next was the chrysalis:  a toilet paper tube that we glued brown squares to.  Finally, the butterfly.  There are so many craft butterfly ideas out there, but we used the idea for the Coffee Filter Butterfly.  I actually had cone-shaped filters, so I just cut one apart and we used that.  He colored it with washable markers.  I encouraged him to make it the same on both sides since a butterfly's wings are usually mirror images.  We then sprayed the filter with a few squirts of water and watched the marker spread a little.  We let it dry and then pinched the middle and secured it with the remaining pipe cleaner. 

Koen's set came home from school and a gallon bag, so naturally Tysen's is stored in a  gallon bag.  But before he put it away he got lots of play time out of it!

Working hard to create a
beautiful butterfly!



Letting the wings dry.



The full life cycle:  egg, caterpillar, leaf to eat, chrysalis, butterfly!



Playing life cycle.

Catching the butterfly with the bug net.