How to act out the life cycle of a butterfly.

A Butterfly’s Life Cycle

Experience the transformation.

Do you want the butterfly’s life cycle to come to life for your child? You can read about it in books, look at pictures, watch videos, even grow your own butterflies from caterpillars. But have you ever considered having your child become the caterpillar that creates the chrysalis and transforms into a butterfly?

This activity is perfect for those kiddos who love moving their bodies and learn best through play-based learning. I’m so excited to share it with you! Both my five and three year old participated. Marty and Mick, respectively. At the bottom of the page is the condensed instructions for quick reference.

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Don’t miss out on more life cycle learning opportunities!

Play-acting a butterfly’s life cycle is one of many more lessons to help your child explore the life of a caterpillar and butterfly. If you and your child enjoy this activity I encourage you to check out Cc is for Caterpillar, complete with activity ideas, printables, coloring pages, and book suggestions.

I recommend reading about caterpillars and butterflies before conducting the activity to help your child visualize the stages before they begin acting them out. So be sure to check out the book list. A couple to get you started are The Mystery of the Monarchs by Barb Rosenstock and A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston.

Now let us get into this engaging activity.

Act out a butterfly’s life cycle

You will want to verbally direct your children through the life cycle stages and/or get into it yourself! Be sure to name the cycles and explain what the bug is going through in each stage. The caterpillar is hungry, changing into something completely new, and so on.

Materials

The materials are common household items and include: lettuce, blanket, straw, flower, and balls.

Flowers are probably the toughest to come by. If it’s the wrong time of year, you can buy them from a store – real or fake. However, if you want to keep this activity free then consider making one from tissue paper you might have with your gift wrapping supplies. It doesn’t need to be fancy, your child won’t mind.

Caterpillar stage

First, you’ll need lettuce leaves in the caterpillar stage. Have your child get on their belly and move like caterpillars do to hunt for the lettuce leaves. They’re very hungry caterpillars. I left ours on a plate because my boys would actually eat them and I wanted to make sure they remained clean.

Encourage them to eat, eat, eat! Just like a hungry caterpillar.

Chrysalis stage

Now that they have eaten their fill, it is time to transform. Using a blanket, I used a baby blanket that I brought out from the closet, have your child kneel and wrap them up like they’re inside a chrysalis.

Butterfly stage

Become really excited and have them emerge from their chrysalis as a beautiful butterfly. They need to dry their wings so don’t let them take off flying yet. For a brief moment have them hold their arms out and stretch them like they have just woken up from a good sleep.

Alright, now they are ready to take off and hunt for flowers. Give your child a straw to act as their proboscis and have them fly around looking for flowers to drink nectar from. You’ll want to place flowers around the room to have them flap their wings to travel to them.

Once they drink nectar it’s time to lay some eggs. I used a few wiffle balls we had lying around but you can use any ball, pom-pom, wadded up piece of tape or something that is safe and easy for your child to carry. I recommend not using a stuffed animal but a plain small pillow would suffice.

Have them carry their eggs to a designated spot and lay them down.

Repeat

Now the eggs hatch and they’re caterpillars again who are very hungry. Your child can continue this cycle until they grow bored. I repeated it with my boys around eight times before I had to bow out and tend to their little brother. They continued the cycle a few more times before calling it quits themselves.

The perfect rainy day activity

The boys enjoyed this so much I’m excited to break it out again on a rainy day and surprise them. I hope you and your kids have as much fun as my family did. If you try this, please leave a comment down below letting me know how it went and if you might have changed anything.

If you want to continue learning about the life cycle of a butterfly be sure to check out Cc is for Caterpillar. Also, if you want more learning opportunities for various subjects, Playing for Hours offers Letter of the Week for free. Simply, follow the button below.

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Play Act the Life Cycle of a Butterfly

Directions

What it teaches

Life cycle of a butterfly
Exploring imagination

Materials needed

Lettuce leaves
Small blankets – such as baby or lap blankets
Straws
Flowers
Ball toys

Instructions

Begin as an egg by curling up into a ball on the floor.
Hatch out of the egg by stretching and “wiggle” like a caterpillar would to your plate of lettuce leaves.
Eat like crazy because you’re a very hungry caterpillar.
Now that you’ve eaten enough, wiggle to where you’ll spin your chrysalis (blankets).
Have your child kneel upright like a chrysalis would hang and wrap them in their blanket.
Be patient until….they can break free and spread their new wings to dry.
Once their wings are dry, hand them a straw and have them fly off to drink nectar from the flowers.
Fly around the house and then come back to lay eggs.
For laying eggs, have them cradle the balls in their arms and then lay them down.
The cycle is complete! Your child will inevitably want to act through the cycle again. Do this as many times as your kiddo wishes.