Too cold to go outside? Tired of playing in the garden? Now you can see beautiful butterflies indoors too! Create a butterfly mobile for hanging anywhere in the home — and learn about this magical creature while you’re at it. Little kids can practice their drawing and cutting skills while they develop an appreciation for nature (which is why you’ll use paper butterflies instead of trying to catch the real ones!) With a little creativity and some fun craft work, your child and her mobile will be flying high.
What You Need:
- Black poster board
- Construction paper in a variety of colors
- Scissors
- Markers or crayons
- Hole punch
- Cord or fishing wire
- Glue
- Pictures of butterflies
What You Do:
- Gather pictures of butterflies from magazines, books, and the Internet. Have your child point out her favorites. Maybe she loves the yellow one with the black dots. Or maybe the butterfly with the bright red wings. Once she’s decided what her favorite butterflies look like, you’re ready to start creating them.
- Draw the outline of three butterflies on pieces of construction paper. You and your child can decide how large they should be and if they should all be the same shape. Have your child help you cut them out using scissors.
- Glue the butterflies onto black poster board and then trim the black poster board to follow the shape of your butterfly. Let the glue dry.
- Get creative! Decorate your butterflies with glitter, markers, and more construction paper. Glue on old buttons or macaroni. Anything goes! Add some antennae using thin wire or pipe cleaners. Let your imagination run wild!
- Once all the glue has dried, use a single hole punch to make a hole through the top and bottom of each butterfly.
- Tie a loop in your cord or fishing wire at one end. Next, thread the cord through the first hole in your first butterfly. Run the cord behind the butterfly and through the bottom hole. Repeat this with the other butterflies.
- When you have finished connecting all your butterflies, hang the string from the ceiling and watch how quickly the mobile transforms the room into a more beautiful place.
While decorating your butterflies take some time to identify all the parts of the butterfly: the body, the antennae, the wings, and legs. Share some simple facts about butterflies with your child: Did you know that butterflies were once caterpillars? Did you know they can only see the colors red, green and yellow? They have long sticky tongues that they stick into flowers to eat nectar. While eating the nectar they pollinate the flowers. This makes butterflies very important to a biosphere.
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