Fun Activities to Learn about Butterflies

Spring is a great time of year to talk about butterflies, whether you live where butterflies are migrating this time of year or not. Here are some fun resources, games and butterfly themed activities to help your kids learn about and explore the world of butterflies.

Learning Activities with Butterflies

Learn the basics of the life cycle of a butterfly with this collection of videos compiled by Simply Kinder. One or two of these would be a great way to kick off your studies.

Little Pine Learners has a gorgeous set of butterfly identification printables on their Teachers Pay Teachers page, plus a full blog post that shows you a bunch of different ways to use them. I love the idea of hiding the different butterflies outside for kids to find, then coming indoors to identify them.

These butterfly identification flash cards from Look We’re Learning are a fun way to learn about different kinds of butterflies, match them up and even play find the match in rice or another sensory material.

These free butterfly printables from Living Montessori Now are great to use when practicing letters and numbers. She has her own printables with a butterfly and the letter b and numbers 0-5, but the post links up more great butterfly letter resources too.

How Wee Learn has a great set of printable butterfly activity pages, including coloring sheets, anatomy, life cycle, color by number and complete the drawing pages.

ABCs of Literacy has a free printable playdough mat showing the parts of a butterfly, which is a good way to introduce little kids to those terms and let them play with making their own butterfly shapes with playdough.

This caterpillar to butterfly balloon experiment from The Educator’s Spin on It is a riff on the classic vinegar and baking soda reaction with a butterfly twist. A fun and easy way to make your butterfly “take flight” with items you probably already have in the house.

Homeschool Preschool has collected more easy butterfly STEM ideas for little learners.

Butterfly Art Activities and Games

Butterflies give us a fun way to talk about symmetry and to make a symmetrical, butterfly themed art project like this one from Simply Full of Delight.

Or make coffee filter butterflies, which is a classic, easy but always fun craft. Get the instructions from Organized Island.

Collect bits of leaves, grass, spring flowers and other things you find in nature on a nice day and make a sticky butterfly art piece like Happy Toddler Playtime did.

Nature Inspired Learning has a fun printable butterfly bingo card set, with 12 different cards full of colorful butterflies to match up.

Need more ideas for a day or a week of butterfly fun? Check out the ideas Glitter on a Dime used to make a week-long butterfly camp for their kiddos one summer.

Printable Butterfly Identification Cards

Butterfly Life Cycle Sensory Jars

Butterfly Suncatchers

Butterfly Life Cycle Craft

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Butterfly Learning Activities and Crafts

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.

Learning Activities with Butterflies

Butterfly Art Activities and Games

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