Spring is a great time to explore butterflies in the elementary art classroom. Butterfly art projects are a wonderful way to connect science, nature and creativity! In this post I’m sharing a butterfly art project for kids along with several beautiful butterfly picture books that inspire creativity. As kids are reading, point out and notice the colors, symmetry, wing shapes and patterns on the butterflies.
Butterfly Books for Kids
I’m going to start with this one, because it is my absolute favorite of the books I found. This Pop-Up Butterflies book by Usborne is so amazing! The butterflies just pop off the page. I think the pictures speak for themselves. (Amazon Affiliate links have been used, thanks for supporting this blog.) The book is short, but gorgeous. It also gives interesting information about butterflies.
The next book is Papilio, a book about an adorable caterpillar who shows emotions while growing up into a butterfly.
The next book is My, Oh My– A Butterfly! a non-fiction book from the Dr. Seuss people. Most people think of the silly rhyming Dr. Seuss books when they think of Cat in the Hat, but I’ve come across some really great Dr. Seuss non-fiction books. There’s 50 in the series! My other favorite one is the Map book.
Here are two more great butterfly books. A Butterfly is Patient is also a book with beautiful illustrations. There are several other nature books in this series if you like this one.
The last book I wanted to share with you is by Gail Gibbons, called Monarch Butterfly. She also has a lot of non-fiction books for kids and I love her illustrations.
Butterfly Art Projects for Kids
Creating butterfly art is a perfect idea for the younger elementary classes! It is a fun Spring theme and you can introduce symmetry as well as types of lines in this art lesson.
To set the stage, I often do a caterpillar art project where we practice mixing the primary colors to make the secondary colors. We use Model Magic for the mixing. If you have never mixed colors with Model Magic before, the colors mix beautifully together. There’s a lot of different rainbow/color mixing projects you could do with this material.
This butterfly project offers several creative options. The main focus is designing a symmetrical butterfly. Students can draw their own butterflies or use templates.
Different types of media can be used for this project: watercolor paints, markers, colored pencils, metallic markers or paper strips!
Want more butterfly art ideas?
You might like these past posts:
- Butterfly Paintings
- Butterfly Origami gift for a retirement
- Clay Butterflies (I did this one again this year, but did not have them trace their hands, we used templates instead.)
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