Butterfly Time!

posted by Susan Cardosi-Albert, Retail ManagerCaterpillar Adoption Days are here (March 17 -April 17)! Check out this fantastic resource for parents and teachers from Carson Dellosa Publishing. It is all based on Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar that ranges from craft ideas to lesson plans, or even interviews with Eric Carle. Can you believe that book is 40 years old?

My Favorite art project is collage, which is perfect for creating your own unique caterpillar or butterfly. A great example of a collage is from a book by Olivia Rosewood called Beatrice is a Butterfly...for Now. Olivia used real photos that her daughter helped take to create her collage.

Check it out in the Busy Bee Learning Store at Kidspace! Here are some instructions, but remember, you can use any materials you like such as old photos, leaves, papers or recycled items.

Here's How to Create Collages:

1. Draw a caterpillar onto tracing paper or other transparent paper.
2. Place your drawing on top of a painted tissue paper and carefully cut the tracing paper and the painted tissue paper with scissors, or with a utility knife (parental assistance recommended)
3. Cut out each section of the caterpillar. First the face, then each body segment.
4. Turn the face over and apply a thin layer of glue or wallpaper paste.
5. Paste the face onto a white illustration board or similar material.
6. Cut out the first green segment of the caterpillar's body.
7. Place tracing paper with head and body segment removed as a guide for pasting down the green segmente.
8. Repeat steps 6 & 7, selecting different shades of green for each segment until the caterpillar body is complete.
9. Carefully cut out the eyes. Moisten the area around the eyes; wait a second, then life and remove the eyes.
10. Cut out yellow, green and brown parts for eyes, nose and feet. You can pick our own colors. Glue them into their places on the face.
11. Use crayons or colored pencils for the final touch!