This topic is close to our hearts. My wee guy is totally in love with caterpillars and butterflies. He sees them everywhere and in everything, so it was only right that we had a focus on them. You could expand this to a more general animal lifecycle theme and include animals such as frogs. Below I have added my planning mind map and will detail all the activities we did.
Butterflies and Caterpillars mindmap
Butterfly Symmetry painting – resources: plain paper, pens, paint.
This activity is a classic. I drew a rough butterfly outline onto a piece of plain paper and then folded it in half so that only one set of wings were visible. Robbie then painted the visible half completely, making sure there was plenty of paint on the paper. When he had finished we opened the paper up fully and folded it back over the opposite way so the paint was covered by the other side of the paper and we pressed it down firmly to make sure all parts of the paper were touching. We then opened it back up and saw that our original design had printed over onto the other side and so out butterfly was the same on both sides.
We had looked at pictures of butterflies before we started and talked about their colours, patterns, why they have these and how they were the same on both sets of wings.
We explored the idea of symmetry and butterfly makings again at a later date and created more butterfly pictures using different painting methods, such as finger painting.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Story and film) – resources: The Very Hungry Caterpillar book, video on YouTube
This story has been one of Robbie’s favourites for as long as I can remember and he can pretty much recite it from memory, so naturally, the story features strongly in our butterflies and caterpillars theme. It’s a brilliant story for little ones. There are so many learning points within it, such as: counting the food, healthy eating, butterfly lifecycle, growing up, repetition of the same phrases, feelings – when he’s got the stomach ache how would he feel etc. We also found a TV version on YouTube. There are hundreds of versions and it’s nice to use as a different medium when you’ve read the story and acted it out with a toy caterpillar and play food many many times!
Butterfly Lifecycle Sequencing – resources: butterfly, caterpillar, egg and chrysalis toy/drawing or model.
This is a very versatile and adaptable activity and one that can be appropriate for lots of different age groups. We revisited it several times as Robbie was so interested in it.
Originally we used the butterfly picture we created earlier in the week, along with a caterpillar and egg painting we made using a round paint stamper sponge and cardboard, to make a model of a butterfly lifecycle. We talked about the different stages and about what we know from The Hungry caterpillar book and pieced the cycle together as a team.
After Robbie’s birthday, we used the toy butterfly, caterpillar, egg and chrysalis he got as a present to model its lifecycle.
Butterfly Hunt walks – resources: green space with colourful flowers.
We spent a lot of our time during our daily exercise allowance (lockdown 2020) going on butterfly and caterpillar hunts. Robbie was totally fascinated with them so any opportunity we had we went out into the wooded/grassy areas near us to see if we could find any. When we did we observed them from a distance and always spoke about the importance of not touching them, being gentile and why they were important for the environment. We also talked about where we might find them and why.
Hungry Caterpillar Yoga – Cosmic Kids
Cosmic Kids yoga on youtube is brilliant. We use it as a wee movement break or as a relaxation activity.
Play-dough Butterflies and Caterpillars – resources: playdough, cutters (you can use the actual butterfly and caterpillar cutters but we just used angel and candy cane ones as Robbie decided they were butterflies and caterpillars).
Robbie sees butterflies and caterpillars in everything and loves play dough so naturally combining the two was high on our list of activities for this theme. We used Christmas cookie cutters to cut out “butterfly” and “caterpillar” shapes, rolled the play dough into long sausages and bent them to make “caterpillars” and used different coloured playdough to make more realistic models. Again we focused on the symmetry of the butterflies and even played with the butterfly lifecycle this way.
Butterfly Cakes – Recipe here
We couldn’t have a butterfly and caterpillar theme without making traditional butterfly cakes! These are super easy and really tasty.
Butterfly Garden “Grow Your Own Butterflies” Amazon
This was wonderful. Since Robbie had been obsessed with butterflies and caterpillars for so long we decided to get the Butterfly Garden. It is really easy to use and is so interesting watching the caterpillars grow and change. We used this purely for interest and fun, but you could equally use this as part of a project where each stage is documented and explained and facts are found out and presented.
Butterfly World Visit Website
As lockdown (2020) eased for a little while we got the chance to visit this wonderful place. We had taken Robbie almost a year earlier and he had really enjoyed it but had been too young to fully appreciate its wonder. We spent hours wandering through the tropical habitats and watching the butterflies flying around and feeding. We explored all the different plants the butterflies likes and found out about the best conditions for butterflies to survive. We also really enjoyed seeing all the chrysalis’ and were amazed by their different sizes and colours.
We would 100% recommend visiting here or somewhere like this.
Hungry Caterpillar Birthday – Robbie turned 2 in May during lockdown (2020) and as we couldn’t have our friends and family over I decided to make his day extra special. Of course, the only logical theme for his birthday party was the Hungry Caterpillar so I set my mind, and some free time to finding and making games, decorations and party food for him. He had a great time on his birthday and still loves to play with the games I made.
Feed the caterpillar game – resources, cardboard, paint, scissors/Stanley knife, ball pool balls.
I used the side of a large cardboard box (Robbie had been given a sand and water table for his birthday early which I used to make these games) and a large plastic bowl. I drew around the bowl to make the circles and then drew around a smaller tapas-style dish to make the inner holes. I used a Stanley knife to cut the holes out and children’s paint for the decorations.
To play the game you use ball pool balls and try to throw them through the holes 1 ball = 1 point. Whoever gets the most balls through is the winner.
Feed the caterpillar 2 – resources: cardboard, paint, scissors/Stanley knife, play food.
I again use the side of a large cardboard box. I made a compass with a pencil and piece of string (I tied one end of the string to the pencil and I attached the other end to the middle of the cardboard with a thumb tac) to draw the large circular head shape, then used a large wooden spoon to draw round for the antennae. I used one a large plastic bowl to draw around for the mouth and cut everything out using a Stanley knife. I then used Robbie’s paints to decorate it.
To play you use toy food and see if you can throw it into the caterpillar’s mouth. You can play it simply as that to practice throwing technique, gross motor skills and hand/eye coordination or you could assign each piece of play food a value and give children an allowance of play money to see who could score the most by feeding their food to the caterpillar. If a piece of food doesn’t go through the mouth when its thrown then it becomes available for the other players to use.
Caterpillar birthday banners – resources: cardboard, paint, scissors/Stanley knife, family pictures.
Due to our family needing to shield during lockdown (2020) I couldn’t get out to the shops to buy Robbie banners for his birthday. I could have ordered them online but thought I’d do one better and make them for him. To do this I used the remaining cardboard from the large box used to make the other games and used the tapas-style dish to draw round for the circles. I also drew an egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly freehand. I cut these out using a Stanley knife and painted them using Robbie’s paint. I used black paint to write the letters freehand, printed pictures and stuck them on. To attach them together I used thread and a large sewing needle to poke the holes and take the thread through.
They are very homemade and a bit rough around the edges, but my boy loved them and they were completely unique for him.
Caterpillar Birthday cake – resources: Bundt tin, marble cake recipe, green/red food colouring, party rings, chocolate buttons.
Again as I couldn’t get to a shop to choose Robbie’s birthday cake I decided to make him one instead. I borrowed a Bundt tin from my mum and used a straightforward marble cake recipe from BBC Good Food to make a round cake. I cut this into thirds, turning two around to make the caterpillar shape. I used buttercream and jam to stick the sections together and then buttercream with food colouring through it to make the icing. I didn’t have icing sugar however as we couldn’t get any through our Asda deliveries so I tried to crush caster sugar to make the buttercream which left it a little bit grainy and left the icing with this interesting, rustic, textured look. I used a party ring broken in half for the feelers and giant chocolate buttons halved for its feet.
It tasted good and Robbie was thrilled with it.
Thumbs & Crumbs 