Butterfly Week, Days 6 & 7

We we're traveling this weekend so I didn't get to post them.

Day 6 we just did a water color wax resist painting. (Which my kids don't quite understand, they like to draw their picture and just paint a line right over it- whatever. It took me a while to learn but it is impossible to make art "wrong"- as long as you expressed yourself it's art!)

So here they are:

I'm sure you know how it's done- if not, draw on the paper with a wax crayon, paint over with water colors and they won't "stick" to the wax.
Here's the action pictures:

Saturday we did beaded butterflies:

I just used some left over jewelry beads (that have been sitting in my craft stuff for years!!) and the wire that I had with it and let them go at it. We started with a bead in the middle for the "head" and then worked with the wire folded in half and beaded both wires for the body and then single strands for the wings (leaving a few inches for twisting space and antennae). I let them decided whether the upper or lower wings would be bigger and then twisted it around a time or two in wherever I could find enough space on the body and again at the top right under the head. when it came to the antennae I only let them put a few beads on and then ran the wire back through the top bead to hold them in place. (And since my K girls always draw their butterflies with curly antennae I went ahead and curled the tips with a pair of needle nose pliers.)
Here's the action shots:

That's all for now,
Jo!

Butterfly Week, Day 5

Today we made butterfly sun catchers:

 Aren't they pretty?

There's a butterfly template and the directions here.
Since the directions are there too I'm not going to give them so here's a few photos of the fun:

 (I keep all paper scraps for possible use in later crafts- the same can be said of tissue paper, these squares were all cut for the tissue paper wreaths we did in early spring.)

That's all for now,
Jo!

Butterfly Week, Day 4

Today was kind of a trial-and-error day. This was our original plan:

It seemed simple enough (and these are our results so we managed to get through it). But it was definitely deceiving. The top wings are a diamond fan folded, the bottom wings are a rounded rectangle fan folded. the body it a strip of magazine paper rolled into a tube and pressed flat. They just don't sit right to me, there's not enough space to glue the body onto the wings.
(If you're interested here's the link we followed.)

So instead we decided to do something different. I had planned extra activities (enough to make it to September because I wasn't sure when school would start) so I grabbed one of those and made it fit our butterfly theme. The idea was to take strips of magazine paper and glue it to fit the outline of a butterfly, but the K girls just wanted to be creative today, they weren't huge on following directions, but one of the reasons we do so many crafts is to inspire creativity so I let them do as they wanted.
Here's what we ended up with:

 (KK attempted the idea, but insisted the lines fit the angles of the butterfly rather than lining up side by side, and then she colored the background.) 

(KL just wanted to color, but decided to add a few- & I do mean few, I believe there's only 4- strips.)

That's all for now,
Jo! 

Butterfly Week, Day 3

Yesterday we started, but didn't get to finish, "ink blot" butterflies.

These are so fun, and I'm never *not* surprised by the way the colors turn out.

Start with a piece of card stock (or some other thick) paper and fold it in half.
Next add a few drops of paint:

Then fold back in half and press them together to smear the paint, so you end up with a (mostly) symmetrical design.

After they dried, I took a pencil to outline the butterfly shape I saw in the picture, but left it to the girls to decide the final design (but they stuck with what I drew).

(This is the best picture of the pencil line, sorry, none of them turned out great. Also, look at the "tiger stripes" that formed in the top half of this one- aren't they awesome!!)

All that's left is for the kiddos to trace/draw the outline (we used a black marker, my original plan was paint, but the first round took too long to dry and I figured they would be able to control the marker better anyway). And then add any details they desire, such as the antennae, my children also added smiles and feet. 

That's all for now,
Jo!

Butterfly Week, Day 2

Today's is an oldie (I remember doing it in grade school) but a goody :)

Paper Towel Butterflies!!

Start with food coloring dyed water, pipettes or syringes for dropping, a clothes pin painted black, and a pipe cleaner cut in half.

Grab a paper towel (ours are select-a-size, so we actually had two). Fold it in half, so the wings will be identical, or quartered if desired. Then drop the water on the towels.

 (KL actually enjoyed color mixing)

Here's our finished towels:

We decided there was plenty water left so we decided to make two more each and then choose our favorites afterwards.

After they've had time to dry we gathered the middle into the clothes pin and put the pipe cleaner in the "bump" of clothes pin and twisted a few time so they wouldn't move around.
I didn't take a close up of the finished product because my K girls quickly fluttered off with their butterflies. Also, since I had only painted two clothes pins we just used pipe cleaners twisted around the middle of our extra paper towel wings to finish them.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Butterfly Week, Day 1

Summer vacation has begun!! I decided to schedule out a combination of crafts and learning to keep these crazy K girls busy (and hopefully learning too). The first week I decided we'd just be doing crafts, as an easy transition. They love craft time so I knew that would be easy enough to get them to do. I also chose a theme for each week, the first week is butterflies.

Here's today's craft:

It was pretty simple. We started with a cardboard circle (the original idea was a paper plate- copying an idea I saw just a picture of, but I had cardboard and thought it would work just fine).
I drew black lines to divide it into the four sections.

Then I gave the K girls a piece of green scrap paper to draw and cut out their leaf.

Then they glued it on to their circle.

Then I used a hole punch to make eggs out of plain white paper. They glued them on and then labeled that section of their life cycle.

Next is the caterpillar- we took a green pipe cleaner and twirled it around our finger.

(This is actually KK helping KL get hers twirled- it's so sweet when they help each other.)

And KK had the great idea to just push the pipe cleaner through the cardboard instead of trying to glue it (which isn't always easy). 

Next we move to the chrysalis (of which I apparently forgot the "h" after the "c" in spelling it- oops!) 

We took a yellow piece of tissue paper and just crumbled it into a ball. 

Then we glued is hanging off a stick that we drew on. (I originally planned to find a small, thin twig, but I forgot and KK was still in her PJs anyway, so I wouldn't let her outside.) 

For the butterfly we grabbed a small square of tissue paper, squeezed it in the middle and used half of a black pipe cleaner and folded it in half. Tucked the tissue paper in and twisted it closed, leaving antennae open at the top.

(KL thought the antennae were too long so she cut hers shorter.)

Then we glued them on, KL was smart enough to put the glue on the wings instead of the pipe cleaner. Which made it easier to apply. Make sure you have all your labels, here's a cute picture of KL (my just out of Kindergarten-er concentrating super hard on her writing- I gave her a spelling cheat sheet): 

Then it's all done. :) 

That's all for now,
Jo!