Butterfly Life Cycle Fun!

Fun activities and crafts to learn about the butterfly life cycle. Two projects, posters, and sequence printables. Freebie included

Teaching about the life cycle of living things can be super interesting for students. Especially now a days when we can pull up a video clip of just about anything, seeing real life examples of animals going through their life cycle make it that much more tangible for them.

Learning about the butterfly life cycle is no exception. With a quick search on Youtube, you can pull up dozens of videos which can be shown in the classroom. Also, the life cycle of the butterfly has four major steps, and they are so drastically different from one another, that actually seeing that metamorphosis happen is so intriguing.

When I start my butterfly life cycle lessons, I spread it out over 3-5 days, depending on the class, because it is that darn interesting! I mean, sure I can teach them them the four stages super fast and have them memorize it and spit it back out for me, but that's not the point.

I like to start off my lesson with some videos. Below are links to two videos I show in my class. The first one is a cartoon version that talks through the steps. But the second one is the best. It is a time lapse video of a real transformation happening, and it is mesmerizing for students.

Now, depending on the grade level of your students, you can teach them some different vocabulary. For young learners, saying the stages as egg, caterpillar, pupa, and butterfly could suffice. You could add in the stage names - egg, larvae, chrysalis, and adult butterfly.

I like to show real pictures of each stage and the posters hanging on the board or somewhere accessible. I pair them up and give them them pictures of the four stages to put into order. They have to talk to each other and say the name of each stage and what they remembering happening in each step. The first day's lesson ends with students completing a cut/paste activity sequencing the steps (which I'm giving as a freebie, just click on the worksheet picture).

click to download!

The next day, we do the butterfly flap craft. They write the stage name in order on the bottom of the flap. Combining an assessment with a project- can't get better than that. It's like hiding broccoli inside a cupcake..they'll never know!

On the following day, after reviewing, we start on our butterfly life cycle writing and project. This takes place over a couple of days but I like to integrate it into my ELA writing block as well. They use a graphic organizer to write down what happens in each step and draw a small picture. Then, they write their rough draft, edit it with peers and with me and start writing their final copy in paragraph form.

For the completion of this project, we take a paper plate and divide it into quarters. They write down the name of each stage in the sections of the paper plate and draw arrows going around to show the cycle steps. Then we use random items to create each part. For the egg, students cut out a leaf from construction paper. On top of it they glue something small to replicate the egg. In the past I've done a small pasta shell, a rice grain, and here you see a pompom. For the caterpillar, they've used a small piece of a pipe cleaner. For the pupa, we take a little piece of tissue paper and crumple it up and glue it from a construction paper branch. For the butterfly, either students draw their own butterfly and cut it out to glue or they use butterfly stickers. We attach the paper plate to the top of the writing and out comes a beautiful display.