Butterfly Crafts for Kids

May 23, 2026 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

A few years ago I did a post about learning activities related to butterflies, but it didn’t include butterfly crafts, so let’s take a look at some fun butterfly crafts to do alongside your butterfly unit study or for summer.

A yarn butterfly is a classic craft, and kids can make it their own by using different colors of yarn, pipe cleaners, beads, etc. Get the instructions from The Craft Train. They’ve also got a fun idea of making butterfly prints using a sponge — so pretty!

Using a sponge to make a print is sort of like doing a mirror painting, and you can do that directly on the paper with this craft idea from What A Mom Needs, which turns the symmetrically painted butterfly into a wand. A free butterfly template is included in the post.

Another take on yarn and butterflies are these yarn wrapped butterflies from School Time Snippets. This is a great upcycling project and a way to use a bit of your yarn stash at the same time.

Suncatchers are another classic craft for summer or any time of year, and this butterfly shaped suncatcher from Jasmine Ansah is a great one for kids to try. She uses a butterfly printed on regular paper as the template but you could also cut out a butterfly shape in sticky backed paper to make it more translucent if you like. Or you can make it with a plastic sheet protector like this version from The Craft at Home Family.

Make a pretty flapping butterfly craft with the template and instructions from Moms and Crafters. There’s a little bit of engineering involved with this one, so little kids might need some help, but it’s worth the work because it’s so cute in the end.

These cardboard tube butterflies from The Best Ideas for Kids are super cute and you might already have everything you need to make them. If you don’t have colored cardstock kids could also color or paint paper to make the wings.

I Heart Crafty Things has so many cute butterfly crafts I couldn’t decide which one to share, so be sure to check out their neon butterflies made with liquid watercolors and neon glitter, as well as the versions made with watercolor and black glue and painting on newspaper.

Butterfly Bead Bookmark for Kids

Butterfly Life Cycle Sensory Jars

Printable Butterfly Identification Cards

Butterfly Suncatchers

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Learning Numbers for Preschoolers

Learning numbers actually involves a few different skills, from recognizing the shape of the number and knowing the word that goes with it to understanding one to one correspondence for counting and what order the numbers go in.

A lot of this is learned best through play and activities that get kids counting and tracing and otherwise interacting with numbers. These activities can help.

I specifically mentioned tracing above because of these number formation rhymes cards from Teaching Mama, which can be used in lots of ways to practice making the shapes of the numbers, including tracing, lining up items on the number shapes (and counting them!), using playdough to shape the numbers and so on. Each number has a little rhyme to help you remember how to make it, which is cute.

And speaking of playdough, you can find lots of playdough number mats with different themes for kids to use as they learn about numbers. Preschool Play and Learn, for example, has these cute apple themed ones that also teach one to one correspondence as you learn the numbers and count to 10.

Or use these tree-themed ones from Live Over Cs to form the numbers, count out items on a ten frame and place the correct number of items in the tree to match the number (do this with playdough, little buttons or whatever manipulatives you have on hand). Your little builders will also love these Duplo number mats from Life Over Cs, which allow you to shape the number out of blocks and count out the number of blocks that corresponds to each number.

I also love these mats from The Savvy Sparrow that include the number and the word you can trace with playdough or marker, showing how to count the number on your fingers, a tens frame and a number line.

Finger plays and counting songs are lots of fun for little ones, too, and Childhood 101 has a great collection of songs and rhymes having to do with numbers (as well as printable song cards you can use with them.

This cardboard roll number chain form Hands On As We Grow would be a fun addition to singing number songs or to use in other play and counting games. And we all love something easy to make with stuff we already have.

Older kids who already know the order of numbers can also use these connect the dot number printables from Fun Learning for Kids. Or use the shapes for playdough mats or to practice tracing even for kids who don’t know all the numbers in order yet.

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