These colorful butterfly crafts for preschoolers are sure to be a hit with your students. Remember to add them to your collection of butterfly activities for preschoolers!
When you’re teaching the kids about butterflies, books, videos, real images, and lots of hands-on activities are important. Even better if you can incorporate a visit with real caterpillars and butterflies, right?!
As the kids are learning, these butterfly crafts will come in handy. Your students can use them as extensions of your butterfly theme. And they would be such fun after a visit to see some real butterflies. So read below for some fun and crafty butterfly ideas to try with the kids. You’ll even find some caterpillar crafts, too!
Related: Butterfly Sensory Bin
In addition to letting kids express their interest in the topic, the butterfly crafts touch on some early learning skills:
- Fine motor development
- Hand strengthening
- Color identification
- Shape recognition
- Creativity
- Multi-step processes
Of course, the kids will be more focused on crafting their caterpillars and butterflies than anything else. But you know how much playing and creativity can teach kids!
Butterfly Crafts for Preschoolers
These butterfly and caterpillar crafts are sure to keep the kids engaged as they create. They’re “crafty” in the sense that most of the projects call for cutting and gluing, with an expected end result.
But just because they’re crafts doesn’t mean they have to yield the exact same results. Be sure to let your students make their own creative decisions along the way as much as possible. Yes, that might mean you end up with a butterfly that has 7 wings or a caterpillar that has 10 eyes. But that’s okay!
I think kindergarten children would also get a kick out of many of these ideas. To read more about each craft project, click on the link. That will bring you to each individual post, where you can see more pictures and find more details about each craft.
Materials for the Butterfly Activities
Before we head into all of the butterfly crafts for preschoolers, let’s chat supplies. Here are some items you’ll need for the butterfly and caterpillar crafts (I may get commissions for purchases made through links in this post):
- Coffee filters
- Dot markers
- Chenille stems
- Pom poms
- Craft sticks
- Googly eyes
- Food dye
- Liquid watercolors
- Sequins
- Tissue paper
- Pony beads
- Craft rocks
If you have everything you need in your supply stash, that’s great! Otherwise, you might be due for a little shopping trip.
Butterfly Crafts
Okay, let’s jump into the butterfly crafts for preschoolers! So many creative ideas to choose from – it might be hard to pick just one.
This bubble print butterfly craft gives kids ample opportunity to make bubble prints into beautiful butterflies.
Coffee filter butterflies are right up there with captivating crafts. Especially when your kids see how the colors spread through the coffee filters.
Kids will want to make lots of these butterfly craft rings so they can make them “fly” with their fingers!
This simple cardboard butterfly craft is open-ended and lets your students explore several materials.
Another cute way to make butterflies is with paper towels as the wings. They absorb color and look lovely hanging all together from the ceiling, as with these paper towel butterflies.
Younger kids might need a hand with some of the steps with this butterfly mask craft, but you could adapt it or give them some help!
You could stash the supplies for these pony bead butterflies in a bag to take on the go for your little ones.
This stained glass butterfly craft would be beautiful hanging in a window all summer long. It comes complete with a template for the butterfly outline.
These paper bag butterflies are such a sweet twist on a classic preschool craft. Doily wings up the cuteness factor!
If you are looking for an activity to round out a butterfly study, this Monarch butterfly craft is perfect.
These adorable cupcake liner butterflies are sure to be a hit with your preschoolers! Googly eyes always make crafts more fun.
This paper butterfly craft includes a downloadable template, is simple to make, and can be tailored to whatever supplies you have on hand.
Caterpillar Crafts
Well, I can’t talk about butterfly crafts for preschoolers and leave out the caterpillars, could I? So I gathered a few fun crafty caterpillar ideas for you and your students below.
Pom poms make perfect caterpillars, and the addition of a green leaf in this caterpillar preschool craft makes it a must-try craft!
Preschoolers love the chance to make 3D crafts, and you probably already have everything you need to make these egg carton caterpillars.
Kids will go gaga over this wiggly polystyrene ball caterpillar! There’s a little bit of everything involved in making these, but they look completely worth it.
It can be a challenge to think about sustainability when it comes to kids’ crafts, but these two earth-friendly caterpillar crafts are not only adorable, they reuse existing materials.
Isn’t it cool that you can use the same craft materials for several different projects? This paper plate caterpillar craft uses many of the same supplies as other crafts on this list, but in a new, adorable way!
This colorful caterpillar sun catcher uses recycled play dough lids as the caterpillar’s body segments. A good excuse to buy more play dough!
These little easy chenille caterpillars will end up being a big hit with kids as they’ll get to play around with them after they create them!
Another easy-to-set-up craft, these paper plate caterpillars will give your kids a chance to color and create their own caterpillar characters.
Be sure to save this post for future reference! If you pin it, be sure to check out my Butterfly Activities Pinterest board while you’re there.
Preschool Butterfly Lesson Plans
Let Preschool Teacher 101 save you a ton of planning time with fully-developed resources. That way, you can focus on teaching your students at work . . . and keep your personal time to yourself outside of the classroom!
Click on the image below to get our butterfly lesson plans. If your students loved the butterfly crafts for preschoolers, I think they’ll enjoy an entire butterfly theme! The lesson plan pack includes weekly plans, detailed daily lesson plans, whole group activities, small group lessons, center activities, book suggestions, editable planning templates, and related printables.
Here are a few more done-for-you preschool resources you need to check out:
We’re also on Teachers Pay Teachers, if that’s your preference. And be sure to join the waiting list for The Pack from Preschool Teacher 101. Our members get access to our materials, as well as some exclusive products.
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