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

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

125 more activities to get your child to read.

Fall is a great time to learn about and observe the birds in your area, but you can do this any time of year. Whether you’re watching from a backyard or a playground, you’re sure to find a few birds and can learn about the birds that are native to your region in any case.

If you do see birds at home or where your classroom is, the Merlin app is a great one (if your school allows phones). If you don’t already know it, it listens to the sounds around you and can identify birds based on their calls. Very cool and a reason for kids to be quiet while you’re observing nature. Having an old fashioned paper guidebook to the birds where you live is also a great idea because kids can use it to look up birds and it’s just fun to have in the science center.

The specific birds involved in your learning will vary depending on where you live, but here are some bird activities you can do with your kids at home or in the classroom.

Natural Beach Living set up a simple bird nature study center that includes bird books and feathers in front of a big window. There are also some printables you’ll find links to in this post including three part cards and bird observation charts for birds local to them and a bird unit study with lots of great printables (this is a paid resource).

Adventure in a Box has a printable birds of the world bingo game, which might inspire you to learn more about some of the 48 different birds included, from emu to snowy owl, grackle to Atlantic puffin.

If you’re American you’ll enjoy these state bird coloring pages from Flanders Family Home Life. If I can count, only 48 states are listed (which I wouldn’t have noticed except Arkansas isn’t there; it’s one of many whose state bird is the mockingbird). Print out all of them or just your home state, or give each child a bird to research and color to do a presentation in the classroom.

And you can learn more about the different types of bird nests and see if you can observe any of them on a nature walk with this guide to bird nests from Fun Mom Printables on Etsy. It includes information about eight types of nests with drawings and three part cards.

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