Handprint Butterfly Gift for Teachers

Yesterday was the last day of school for me and my daughter. I mentioned in my last post that my center was changing ownership at the end of the month. It's getting a new name with all new staff. It was quite an emotional day, to say the least. I wanted to give each and every one of my coworkers a little something to say thank you. I came up with this:

There's actually a little treat hidden inside, which I will get to later. I used glitter watercolor paint that is thicker than most watercolors. (I bought them on Amazon.) My original plan was to make one butterfly at a time on white paper. But after my first trial run, I realized that wouldn't work.

I had missing fingers or too many fingers or globs of paint in weird places. So then I decided to just have my daughter make a bunch of handprints that I would later cut out.

We made about 20 the first day and probably over 30 the next day. I had a few extras, but that's what I wanted so I could pick and choose the best ones. After cutting them out, I glued them to a piece of cardstock. For the body of the butterfly, I rolled up a pack of Rolos in colored paper and used double-stick tape to keep it closed. I did not tape the paper to the pack of Rolos.

Then I used double-stick tape to attach the roll to the middle of the butterfly, covering up the bottom thumbprints.

The top thumbprints became the butterfly's antennae. In one corner I wrote the teacher's name, in another corner I wrote my daughter's name and the year, and in another corner I wrote, "Thank you for teaching me to spread my wings and fly!"

The pack of Rolos easily slides out, and the butterfly body remains intact.

I scrunched the paper at the end of the body just a bit to hold the Rolos inside when the paper is held upright.

And after the teachers eat the treats, they still have a little keepsake from my daughter. I worked with a wonderful bunch of women and I will miss them greatly! They were not just coworkers, they are, and will always be, my family.

Paper Plate Butterflies

Today was all about butterflies! I ordered caterpillars from Insect Lore and they are now in their chrysalids. (You can read about the last time I used this kit in my classroom here.) We are eagerly waiting for them to emerge as butterflies. Unfortunately, I think this will happen over the holiday weekend. Boo. In the meantime, we made our own butterflies with mini paper plates.

One table was set up to make the wings. The kids painted the paper plates with watercolors.

The other table was for the body of the butterfly. I took colored card stock and cut it into fourths. Then I rolled them up and taped them closed. (My stapler didn't fit in the hole.) I also used the scissors to make two small holes on one end for the antennae.

I put out a bunch of these with sparkly pipe cleaners and markers.

The kids put a pipe cleaner through the holes of the rolled paper.

Then they used the markers to make eyes. (And some kids even made decorations on the body.)

When the plates were dry, I cut them in half and shaped them a little to make them look like wings.

I stapled the wings together and used masking tape to attach them to the body. I tried using glue dots, but the plates weren't sticking very well. The tape worked fine as long as the kids didn't pull on the wings. And if they did and the wings came off, it was easy to reattach them. In fact, I mentioned that without the wings, it looked like a caterpillar. So then the kids started playing with them first as caterpillars and then added the wings to turn them into butterflies! I think they look so colorful sitting on the table in a big group.

And here are the kids making their butterflies fly!

You could use them as finger puppets, too!

 

Fun Fact: Butterflies taste with their feet!

 

Caterpillar Cuties

We are studying the life cycle of a butterfly this week. Last week I brought in caterpillars from Insect Lore and when we showed up to school this morning, they were all in their chrysalises! Today I taught the children all about caterpillars and then we did an easy art project.

 We used Dixie cups to make circle prints on our paper.

I think K-cups would be better because the smaller size would have allowed us to make more prints. But I didn't have any, so Dixie cups it was. I reminded the kids to make sure all their circle prints touched so their caterpillars wouldn't lose any body parts! Once the paint was dry, we used makers to add facial features and legs and anything else we wanted.

They turned out very cute!

This next one has "fake eyes" on all it's body parts to scare away predators (according to the boy who drew it)!

Fun Fact: Caterpillars have 12 eyes.