Butterflies are such a wonderful topic to explore with your child, especially young children.

Most young children have a deep interest in the real world around them. They want to understand it and find their place within in.

When we help them learn about the real world, like nature, and then they get to see it up close, it becomes an incredibly satisfying experience.

They begin to feel like they know things and understand parts of their world, which helps to boost their confidence.

Learning about butterflies at home and then seeing one out at the park can be such a rewarding experience for a child.

That's why we put together these simple butterfly activities for a range of ages, from infants to kindergarten.

5 Butterfly Activities You Can Do This Spring

Decorate A Butterfly

• A simple printable that can be coloured, decorated with dot markers, stickers, or you can use leftover cutting snippets and doing a gluing activity.
• You can also do a symmetrical painting by folding the butterfly in half, hiding the one side of the butterfly facedown on the table, and painting the side that is face up. When done, fold the two sides together, pressing firmly so the paint transfers to the clean side.
• For a totally mess-free, infant-safe version, add the printable with a few blobs of paint to a large ziploc bag and close/tape closed. Allow your child to move the paint around in the bag all over the butterfly. Remove when done and hang to dry. This set also does the same thing, it's just a little fancier.

Butterfly Wing Matching

• Cut the butterflies down the centre line and match the two halves together.
• For younger children, start by offering just 1-3 butterflies, adding more as your child shows interest.
• Keep this activity useable longer by laminating it or covering it in Con-Tact Paper.

Sorting Butterflies By Size

• This printable has 3 pages - small, medium, and large pictures of each of the butterflies.
• This activity teaches children about size gradation and sorting.
• For younger children, start by offering just 2-3 types of butterflies and only offer the smallest and largest sizes.
• Keep this activity useable longer by laminating it or covering it in Con-Tact Paper.

Lifecycle of A Monarch Butterfly

• A great companion printout if you're going to raise monarch butterflies with your children or in your class. It helps the child to see each of the stages up close and examine them in a hands-on way.
• Keep this activity useable longer by laminating it or covering it in Con-Tact Paper.

Parts of A Monarch Butterfly

• This set of 3-Part Cards is great for children with a deep interest in butterflies or as a classroom/homeschool material.
• It's a 4 page PDF with a card for each part of the butterfly, where each body part is labelled and highlighted in orange.
• Great for language development and as a culture activity.

Like these activities?

If you like our free Montessori activities, we also have a virtual program for just $19/month.

Katie, our Infant and Toddler Montessori teacher, emails out weekly, age appropriate Montessori lessons.

Go here to check it out: https://info.themontessoriroom.com/at-home

Even More Butterfly and Lifecycle Activities

We also have a bunch of wonderful spring, lifecycle and butterfly products in the shop right now:

• Book - How to Raise Monarch Butterflies: A Step-by-Step Guide for Kids
• Butterflies TOOB (great for sensory bins)
• Life Cycle Of A Monarch Butterfly
• Life Cycles Wooden Puzzle
• Jumbo Insects
• Insects TOOB
• Sequencing Puzzle: Animals and Insects
• Bug Bingo