Here is another review of some of the activities we did last summer.  I’m really hoping to be back next week with some new posts- hopefully I’ll be somewhat organized by then.

Here is a cute caterpillar made with an egg carton.

We made a butterfly sun catcher.

We made butterflies out of coffee filters.

That is just a quick sampling of what we did- you can find lots more butterfly and caterpillar activities here.

We have been so busy trying to prepare to move that doing crafts has been pushed to the side.  Last week while we were staying with my parents looking for a house my mom watched Hailey us for us so we could go house hunting.  One afternoon while we were out looking we came back to find this adorable craft my mom made with Hailey.

To make it- you take an egg carton (3 sections) and cover it using watered down glue and tissue paper.  Then add pipe cleaners and a picture of your little cutie.

In case anyone is wondering what else we do around here besides crafts, I thought I’d share.  Caterpillars and butterflies have been our theme for the last 2 weeks.  We did several caterpillar art projects (Paper Towel Caterpillar, Caterpillar Name and an Egg Carton Caterpillar) as well as several butterfly art projects (Coffee Filter Butterflies, Butterfly Finger Painting and a Butterfly Sun Catcher).

In addition to our crafts we did the following activities:

We played a butterfly counting and matching game.

Hailey practiced spelling her name on butterfly shaped paper.  (Side note- I usually only use uppercase for the first letter in her name and lowercase for the rest.  But I had these completely made and covered in contact paper before I realized I had used all uppercase letters and I was not going to re-do it.)

We also read a lot of caterpillar and butterfly books.  While I thought some of these might be too old for Hailey she loved them.  Here are some of her favorites:

“My, Oh My–A Butterfly!: All About Butterflies” by Tish Rabe

“The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle

“Monarch Butterfly” by Gail Gibbons

“The Butterfly Alphabet” by Kjell B Sandved

I made some butterfly life cycle sequencing cards for Hailey too.  She enjoyed naming the stages but didn’t understand the concept of putting them order, which I did not expect her to, but it was fun anyways.  If you’re interested in the cards I used- you can get them here –> butterfly life cycle sequencing cards.

And the main focus of our caterpillar to butterfly theme was this:

Day 1

Day 3

Day 5

Day 8

Day 13

Later on in the day of Day 13

Day 16- we let the butterflies fly away.

So, that’s what we’ve been up to.  This week we also started our official “Tot School” and I will be starting to post about our activities next week (I’m usually about a week behind in posting what we’ve been doing).

This was a really simple butterfly craft that was a lot of fun.

Here’s what you’ll need: contact paper, scissors, marker and tissue paper.

Have your child rip the tissue paper into little pieces.  It’s great for developing those fine motor muscles and toddlers love to rip things apart.

Cut your contact paper in half and then have your child put tissue paper on one half of the contact paper.

After your child finishes putting the tissue paper on, put the other piece of contact paper on the back of the 1st piece to keep all the tissue paper inside.  Then I folded it in half and drew a kind-of butterfly shape.

Cut it out and hang your sun catcher on a window.