10 Easy Butterfly Crafts for Kids
If you’re looking for butterfly crafts for kids, we have a bunch of great ones here on the blog, so I’ve rounded them all up and put them here in one place for you.
Below, you’ll find:
- Easy Butterfly Crafts For Toddlers And Preschoolers
- Butterfly Art Techniques & Crafts For Elementary Kids and Tweens
- Monarch Butterfly Crafts
As well as a yummy, easy butterfly snack for preschoolers.
Click on the photos or the links below to get the full instructions for the project that interests you.
Butterfly Crafts for Toddlers and Preschoolers:
The first 4 crafts in our collection are geared to toddlers and preschoolers. They’re easy to do and require common supplies that you have around the house.
Paper Towel Butterflies (3 Ways):
These paper towel butterflies are perfect for toddlers and preschoolers. Kids will observe colour blending and water absorption and strengthen their fine motor skills while decorating their butterfly’s wings, and we show you three options for making your butterfly bodies.
Tissue Paper and Clothespin Butterfly:
Our tissue paper and clothespin butterflies are also great for toddlers and preschoolers. We used paint and a fun stamping process to decorate the tissue paper wings for these butterflies. Stamping, crumpling the tissue paper and manipulating the clothespins are all great for strengthening fine motor skill. These butterflies would look lovely suspended from the ceiling in a classroom or playroom.
Paper Towel and Clothespin Butterfly Fridge Magnets:
Here’s another fun idea! Turn your toddlers paper towel butterfly into a magnet to display on the fridge. It’s easy to do using a clothespin, an old fridge magnet and a glue gun.
Toilet Roll Butterflies:
These vibrant paper towel butterflies were coloured with liquid watercolours and we’ve used cardboard rolls for the bodies. This one is easy enough for preschoolers, but older kids will love it too. My tweens still love dyeing paper towels with watercolours.
Butterfly Crafts for ages 5 and up
These next 3 posts are butterfly art activities which are more suited more to older kids. Younger children can certainly take part in the decorating process, but they’ll need help with the prep. There’s a printable butterfly template in the first two posts if you’d rather not draw your own by hand.
Paper Plate Butterflies – Symmetrical Painting:
This classic art process goes hand in hand with making butterflies and it’s always a hit with kids. We used paper plates but you can do this with sturdy paper as well. Kids find this art technique fascinating, and I’m always amazed at how such a simple process can produces such gorgeous results. You could suspend these butterflies from the ceiling or string them into a garland for the classroom.
Butterfly Silhouette Art:
If you cut carefully when making the paper plate butterflies (previous craft), you can turn the leftovers into beautiful butterfly silhouette art.
Painted Clay Dough Butterfly Ornaments:
We used our easy 3-ingredient clay dough recipe plus Sharpies and liquid watercolours to make these colourful butterfly ornaments. The kids love rolling the warm dough and cutting out their shapes.
Crumpled Tissue Paper Butterflies – a lesson in planning and design:
This butterfly craft involves a classic twisted tissue paper technique to make the colourful wings, but half the fun is in the planning. The older kids in my daycare planned the designs for their butterflies, mapping the design out with a pencil. Then they followed their colour map to fill in the design of their butterflies’ wings.
Monarch Butterfly Crafts
Butterfly crafts aren’t just for spring. In fall, monarch butterflies are plentiful all across North America as they prepare for their winter migration to Mexico. Their vibrant orange and black marking can’t be missed, and are easily replicated in the following coffee filter crafts.
Watercolour Coffee Filter Monarchs:
We used liquid watercolours and coffee filters for this monarch butterfly craft. I couldn’t believe how real these monarchs looked when we clipped them to some plants in our garden. You can hang your monarchs individually or turn them into a mobile like we did here.
Painted Coffee Filter Monarch Craft:
For these coffee filter monarchs, we’ve used acrylic craft paints to decorate our monarchs’ wings. This allowed the kids to make really detailed designs and markings.
Butterfly Snack for Preschoolers
Banana-Graham Butterflies:
Our adorable banana butterfly snack is easy to make and perfect for a spring-themed party or for preschoolers to snack on after doing a butterfly craft. If you’re not crazy about your kids having Smarties, there are healthy alternatives for decorating the butterfly wings in the post.
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
