Butterfly Learning Activities and Crafts

Butterflies are starting to show up where I live, and my daughter and I are excited to volunteer this summer at the butterfly house at our local botanical garden. She already knows a lot about butterflies, but for the rest of us, here are some butterfly learning activities and some fun crafts to make while you learn.

The life cycle of butterflies is endlessly fascinating, and you can grab a simple printable coloring page or a printable life cycle wheel kids can color and assemble from Super Teacher Worksheets (those two resources are free; they have lots of others you can get if you’re a member).

Or check out the life cycle cards (made to be used with play dough but you can also just use them as cards) from No Stress Homeschooling. This printable pack is free when you enter your email and also includes math and language arts activities.

The foldable life cycle printable from Mrs Merry Designs on Etsy is also really cute and a low-prep learning activity for kids.

Whether you have a place to go see butterflies or raise your own, you might need some help identifying the butterflies you see. Rock Your Homeschool has a great set of butterfly identification printables and journal pages to help kids identify and learn about common types of butterflies.

Look We’re Learning has butterfly identification flash cards you can use to play matching and memory games, or to help identify real butterflies you see.

Reading books about butterflies is also a great way to learn about them and how humans can help our butterfly populations. Milkweed for Monarchs by Christine Van Zandt (illustrated by Alejandra Barajas) is a rhyming story about the life cycle of a monarch butterfly with additional educational information. It notes that monarchs can only eat milkweed and encourages readers to plant some to help the butterflies that pass through their area. There are also fun facts in the back to help kids learn more. (40 pages, hardcover, published 2024 by Beaming Books, suggested retail price $18.99)

There are so many fun butterfly crafts out there but here are a few fun ones to check out:

Printable butterfly suncatcher | Artsy Fartsy Mama
Symmetrical butterfly painting | The Craft Train
Butterfly spoon puppet | Ocean Child Crafts
Flapping butterfly craft | One Little Project

Butterfly Life Cycle Sensory Jars

Work on Symmetry with this Easy Butterfly Craft

Printable Butterfly Identification Cards

Looking for the best tools to help teach your child to read? Explore our specially curated Amazon Idea List featuring top-rated reading products designed to make learning to read fun and effective. From engaging phonics programs to interactive toys and books, we have everything you need to support your child’s reading journey. Visit our list now and discover the best resources to teach your child to read!

You can also see some of our other articles on reading activities and ideas here.

125 more activities to get your child to read.

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Fun Activities to Learn about Butterflies

The celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is important throughout Mexico and other parts of the world. Her feast day is Dec. 12, and the celebrations honoring her appearance to Juan Diego in 1531 begin a few days before that.

Whether you celebrate yourself or just want to share about the celebration at home or in your classroom, Las Mañanitas: The Beautiful Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good place to start. The book, by Ernesto Joel Vega Rosales and Jeanette Gonzalez Seneviratne, with illustrations by Dana Sanmar, tells the story of a family’s celebration of the feast day in both English and Spanish.

They prepare with a novena, which is nine days of prayers and preparations. The children, Lucia and Pablo, are given special outfits made by their grandmother that look like what Juan Diego might have worn when he saw Our Lady. The book describes the prayers that are made each day, such as a prayer for respect for life, for families and for the indigenous people of the Americas, to name a few.

As told in the book, Juan Diego was a native Mexican born near modern day Mexico City. His given name was Cuaauhtlatoatzin, which means “He who speaks like an eagle.” When he converted to Christianity his name was changed to Juan Diego, and as he walked to church he passed a hill called Tepeyac. One day he heard the birds singing especially beautifully and a voice called him to go to the top of the hill.

There he saw Our Lady of Guadalupe, who asked him to tell the bishop she wanted a chapel built in her name at the foot of the hill. The bishop asked for a sign that Juan Diego really saw her, and later she had him collect flowers that she blessed and take them to the bishop. When Juan Diego dropped the flowers, an image of Our Lady could be seen on his cloak, which is still on display in her basilica to this day.

The feast day is celebrated as mañanitas, which includes singing, indigenous music and dancing, and children presenting flowers to Our Lady. Juan Diego is remembered today as being humble, brave and faithful, and was the first indigenous American made a saint.

The book is colorful and tells the story in a clear way, and it’s fun to have it both in English and Spanish if you teach Spanish or speak Spanish at home or in the classroom. It’s a great way to learn the basics of the celebration and the story of Juan Diego and why he is still remembered today.

About the book: 40 pages, paperback, published 2024 by Loyola Press. Suggested retail price $14.99.

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