Easy Butterfly Life Cycle Craft Kids Love - Paper Plate Craft

Spring is the perfect time to share the butterfly life cycle with your children. This Butterfly Life Cycle Craft is a great hands-on activity to do with your kids. Butterflies have four different stages to their life cycle and this is the perfect visual display. Add a few butterfly books and a real live butterfly habitat you’ll have a complete Butterfly theme.

Butterfly Life Cycle Craft

Butterfly Life Cycle Craft – Spring Paper Plate Craft

If you are interested in studying the life cycles or sharing them with your children, you will love this wonderful bundle of life cycle activities. Your children will love learning about the natural series of changes that take place in the world.

This is an example of what you will need to make your Life Cycle of a Butterfly Paper Plate Craft is in this picture below. However, I have it displayed in list form towards the bottom of the page. Have fun!

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Start by having your child paint the entire outer ridge of the inside of the paper plate yellow. Leave the flat middle part white. Set it aside to dry.

Crafting the Butterfly Life Cycle Stages

For the chrysalis: cut a small square of the green tissue paper and form it into a cocoon shape over one end of the stick. Twist it closed around the stick.

For the butterfly: cut a small square of pink tissue paper, pinch together in a fan style, and clip the clothespin on it to hold it in place. Make sure each side of the paper is equal and fans out like wings. Cut a small piece of pipe cleaner, fold in half, and clip the clothespin to it, so it looks like antennas.

For the eggs: cut out a small leaf from the green paper and draw some lines on it to resemble leaf veins. Glue the sixlets on in the middle of the leaf.

Once your plate is dry, draw 2 black lines on the flat white part, so you have 4 equal sections.

Glue the leaf onto one of the sections. Glue the six poms on another section to look like a caterpillar. Glue the cocoon onto another section and glue the butterfly onto the last section.

Use a marker to write the life cycle names above each life cycle section: Write eggs above the leaf, write caterpillar above the caterpillar, write chrysalis above the chrysalis, and write butterfly above the butterfly.

Perfect Butterfly Life Cycle Craft for Kids

Lifecycle of a Butterfly Craft

What’s Needed:

White Paper Plate
Yellow Craft Paint
Brown Pipe Cleaner
Mini Clothespin
Small Stick
Tiny Poms
Green Paper, small piece
Tissue Paper, light green and pink
White Sixlets
Glue Stick
Black Marker

Directions:

1. Paint the entire outer ridge of the inside of the paper plate. Leave the flat middle part white. Let dry.
2. For the chrysalis: cut a small square of the green tissue paper and form it into a cocoon shape over one end of the stick. Twist it closed around the stick.
3. For the butterfly: cut a small square of pink tissue paper, pinch together in a fan style, and clip the clothespin on it to hold it in place. Make sure each side of the paper is equal and fans out like wings. Cut a small piece of pipe cleaner, fold in half, and clip the clothespin to it so it looks like antennas.
4. For the eggs: cut out a small leaf from the green paper and draw some lines on it to resemble leaf veins. Glue the sixlets on in the middle of the leaf.
5. Once your plate is dry, draw 2 black lines on the white flat part so you have 4 equal sections.
6. Glue the leaf onto one of the sections. Glue the six poms on another section to look like a caterpillar. Glue the cocoon onto another section and glue the butterfly onto the last section.
7. Use a marker to write the life cycle names above each life cycle section: Write eggs above the leaf, write caterpillar above the caterpillar, write cocoon above the cocoon, and write butterfly above the butterfly.
Optional: If you can’t get sixlets or prefer to use something else you can use small white pompoms for the eggs.