Children are fascinated with the life cycle of a butterfly and really enjoy learning about how a cute, fuzzy little caterpillar turns into a beautiful flying insect.  This Easy Butterfly and Chrysalis Craft for Kids allows children to have a creative, hands-on experience as they watch their beautiful butterfly emerge from its cocoon.  Not only is this craft cute, fun and  simple…it also teaches science!

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Easy Butterfly and Chrysalis Craft

Supplies:

I had all of these supplies already on hand, which makes for some frugal fun!  If you are missing any supplies, most of these can be found at your local dollar store or craft supply store.

STEPS:

Paint both the wood clothespin and toilet paper roll with washable paints.

Very quickly add the pom pom balls and googly eyes before the paint dries on the body of your caterpillar.  If you need to later add some glue to make them stick better, I recommend using a hot glue gun.  Set the painted chrysalis and caterpillar aside to dry.

While the paint dries, work on creating the butterfly wings by flattening out the coffee filter.

Using dot art daubers, cover the entire coffee filter with beautiful colors!

Using a squirt bottle, spray a mist or two of water on the coffee filter until the colors bleed together.  Set the coffee filter aside until it dries.

While the coffee filter dries, finish assembling your caterpillar.  Using a pipe cleaner (cut in half), wrap it once around the tip of the clothespin (squeeze open the clothespin).  Now your caterpillar has antennae!

Once the coffee filter has dried, you can fold it like an accordion to create your butterfly’s beautiful wings!

You then simply squeeze open the caterpillar clothespin and place the folded coffee filter in the opening and slowly close it shut.

Then you can fan out the gorgeous wings and your caterpillar is now a butterfly!

For children to get the full experience of watching their little caterpillar emerge from the cocoon just simply fold down the wings and gently place the butterfly inside the chrysalis.

My boys had a blast with this interactive, Easy Butterfly and Chrysalis Craft for Kids!  Here are their critters inside their cocoons and then finally emerged as beautiful butterflies!

Written by About a Mom contributor, Mandy Mae. Mandy is a wife, mother, teacher, and frugal-DIY-enthusiast. Hoping to inspire mothers to take action in making a positive influence in the lives of their children with simple DIY, crafting, thrifting, and teaching projects. You can see more from Mandy Mae on her blog MissMaesDays.com.

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