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You are here: Home / Themes / Insects / Butterflies / Discover and Explore Butterflies

Discover and Explore Butterflies

By Shaunna Evans 31 Comments · This content may contain affiliate links.

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Welcome to the first-ever Discover and Explore weekly themed linky! Each week we hope to collect a variety of resources based on a specific theme. I hope these posts become a fantastic list of inspiration and ideas that can be used by parents, teachers, and anyone who works with kids. Don’t forget to stop by  KC Edventures to check out what Jacquie is sharing for the butterfly theme.

Now let’s Discover and Explore Butterflies…

Butterfly Activities

We recently celebrated Tinker’s second birthday. For each birthday I try to relate the theme to something the girls are currently interested in, and this year’s theme was butterflies. One of the gifts we purchased for her was the Insect Lore Live Butterfly Pavilion, and it was probably the gift everyone in the family enjoyed most. The pavilion comes with a voucher for 6-10 caterpillars. I redeemed the voucher online (faster!), and we soon had two containers of tiny larvae to observe.

Although I’ve had the opportunity to raise caterpillars in a classroom setting before, this experience was much different for us. In the classroom for a variety of reasons, I didn’t give the kids enough time to just sit and watch the caterpillars, and I wish I would have done that differently somehow.  Here at home we put the caterpillars right on the kitchen counter where we could see them during our snack times and other activities. We were constantly drawn to the caterpillars, and it gave us many opportunities to talk about how they were changing and the different behaviors we noticed. The kids (and even the grownups in the house) were fascinated by the whole process, and it’s something we will continue to do as we find our own caterpillars outdoors.

Butterfly Life Cycle

All ten of our caterpillars turned into butterflies, and before we knew it they were ready to fly off on their own. One of my very favorite moments happened while we were trying to release the butterflies. We expected them to fly away eagerly, but these two just seemed to want to hang out with us a bit longer. I snapped this photo of Lovey as she was willing them to fly. Her sweet words melted my heart, “Come on you can do it. Go join your brothers and sisters. You can fly back and say hello to me everyday.”

Raising ButtefliesOur Butterfly Song

We love singing songs. This one was inspired and adapted from one of the butterfly songs shared at Perpetual Preschool. It is sung to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus, and the kids loved doing their own interpretive dances of the butterfly’s life cycle.

Little caterpillar is crawling around, crawling around, crawling around

Little caterpillar is crawling around, in the yard.

Big caterpillar is making a chrysalis, making a chrysalis, making a chrysalis

Big caterpillar is making a chrysalis, in the yard.

Pretty butterfly is flying around, flying around, flying around

Pretty butterfly is flying around, in the yard.

Some of the Other Butterfly Resources  We Used

Preschool Powol Packets has a great collection of facts about painted lady butterflies that might be fun to share with kids during your butterfly activities.

This Sesame Street YouTube of Elmo singing Little Butterfly Friend was also a favorite in the house.

Click here for full butterfly book list of even more great books we read about butterflies.

Get a Full Week of Butterfly Theme Learning and Play

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

  

This set includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:

1) Butterfly Life Cycle Roll and Graph Game
2) Butterfly Life Cycle Roll and Graph Game
3) Caterpillar Uppercase Alphabet Cards
4) Butterfly Lowercase Alphabet Cards
5) Butterfly Life Cycle Cards
6) Butterfly Symmetry Matching Cards
7) Butterfly Life Cycle Word Building Mats
8) Caterpillar Measurement Recording Sheet
9) Caterpillar Patterning Activity
10) Caterpillar Syllable Sort
11) Caterpillar Egg Leaf Counting Mats (Numbers 1-10)

Get Your Lesson Plans

Home Preschool Butterfly  Theme Lesson Plans

Preschool Classroom Butterfly Theme Lesson Plans

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Filed Under: Butterflies, Discover and Explore, Insects, Kindergarten, Letter B, Preschool, Science, Spring Tagged With: butterflies for kids, butterfly activities, butterfly crafts, butterfly theme, facts about butterflies, weekly linky

Previous Post: « Are Seeds the Same? Science Investigation
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jennifer

    May 12, 2013 at 9:34 pm

    Visiting from the Sunday Showcase. I’d love for you to share your family-friendly crafts and ideas at Monday Kid Corner at thejennyevolution.com. See you at the party!

    Jennifer

    Reply
  2. Allison

    April 19, 2013 at 11:47 pm

    We are enjoying watching our caterpillars grow right now. 🙂 I’m featuring this on The Sunday Showcase tomorrow.

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 20, 2013 at 7:44 am

      Oh, it’s such an awesome experience. I hope you guys are enjoying it as much as we did. Thanks so much for featuring this post.

      Reply
  3. Beth

    April 19, 2013 at 5:46 am

    What a fun butterfly study. The butterfly pictures you captured were AMAZING!

    Thanks for linking up to TGIF! Hope to see you linked up again today =)

    Have a great weekend,
    Beth =)

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 19, 2013 at 12:53 pm

      Thank you! It’s definitely an experience we’ll remember and try again next year!

      Reply
  4. Stephanie

    April 16, 2013 at 8:46 am

    Thank you for hosting! I love that your new linky is themed- lots of great ideas in one spot!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 16, 2013 at 9:10 pm

      Thanks for joining in! I’m excited about the themes, too. I’m discovering a lot of new ideas. 🙂

      Reply
  5. Ann @ My Nearest and Dearest

    April 15, 2013 at 6:00 am

    What sweet words your daughter said to the butterflies. 🙂

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 15, 2013 at 12:37 pm

      I know…sweet girl!

      Reply
  6. Aleacia

    April 14, 2013 at 9:20 pm

    How sweet that a couple butterflies hung around for a bit and that your daughter was able to talk to them <3
    So many butterfly ideas linked up! Can't wait to look through them all!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 15, 2013 at 5:20 am

      Isn’t that sweet? It was such a tender moment.

      And you’re right…so many wonderful ideas! I hope you enjoy looking through them.

      Reply
  7. Tanya

    April 14, 2013 at 5:01 pm

    Shaunna, you did a fantastic job teaching your girls about butterflies! I’m sure they will always remember it. This is a wonderful resource! Definitely a “pin it” post! I’ll be back to link up for several of the future themes- I LOVE the themed linky!! 🙂

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 15, 2013 at 5:18 am

      Thanks, Tanya! I’m so glad you like the themed linky, and I’m looking forward to see what you post in the future!

      Reply
  8. Sugar Aunts

    April 13, 2013 at 6:18 pm

    What a fun activity! I love your daughter’s sweet words to the butterflies! We have a post I can link up, yay! Thanks for sharing with us at Share It Saturday!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 14, 2013 at 2:32 pm

      I was so touched by her sweet words, too. So glad to have you join in the linky. I hope you’ll come back and participate in our future themes.

      Reply
  9. chelsey

    April 13, 2013 at 2:51 pm

    I love these themed linky parties! Great idea! I’m super excited about this butterfly one because our hometown celebrates the arrival of monarchs each fall. I’m always on the lookout for butterfly activities to do around this time!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 14, 2013 at 2:32 pm

      I’ve read about places that celebrate the arrival of monarchs. Seems like something neat to experience! Glad to have you join in the linky when you can.

      Reply
  10. Paula

    April 12, 2013 at 8:14 am

    Shaunna,

    Thanks so much for inviting me to your linky party! This is so much fun! Fantastic ideas from everyone!

    Paula
    Learn + Play = PreK

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 12, 2013 at 1:56 pm

      I really appreciate you taking the time to stop by and link up, Paula. I hope you’ll come back and share your favorite Earth Day post next week.

      Reply
  11. Claire

    April 12, 2013 at 6:28 am

    Thanks so much for sharing. We’ll be doing an Eric Carle unit over the summer and all these ideas are perfect!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 12, 2013 at 1:56 pm

      These activities will go along nicely! I look forward to seeing your Eric Carle posts!

      Reply
  12. Scribble Doodle and Draw

    April 10, 2013 at 11:33 pm

    What a wonderful collection! Thank you for sharing!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 11, 2013 at 6:00 am

      Thanks so much for joining us! I hope you’ll come back to share more ideas next week for our Earth Day theme.

      Reply
  13. Pinkoddy

    April 10, 2013 at 4:21 pm

    What a lovely idea. Thank you for hosting.
    Would love it if you could link up to the Spring Carnival.

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 11, 2013 at 5:42 am

      Thanks! I hope you’ll come back and link up often.

      Reply
      • Pinkoddy

        April 14, 2013 at 6:13 pm

        Thank you. Yes if I forget I’m usually on twitter if you’d like to give me a nudge x

        Reply
        • Shaunna

          April 15, 2013 at 5:19 am

          I’ll send that nudge your way 🙂

          Reply
  14. Ashley

    April 10, 2013 at 7:56 am

    We found a very old butterfly post! Hooray! 🙂

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 10, 2013 at 1:56 pm

      I think that is one of the great aspects of this format…we get to share some of those older but still awesome posts! Thanks for joining in!

      Reply
  15. Anna - The Measured Mom

    April 10, 2013 at 7:39 am

    This is such a fabulous idea! Unfortunately we haven’t done any butterfly stuff yet 🙂 But I look forward to getting lots of ideas here!

    Reply
    • Shaunna

      April 10, 2013 at 1:53 pm

      Thanks! I’m really excited about the weekly themes. Sad you can’t participate this week, but I hope you’ll be able to join in soon!

      Reply

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