All Kinds of Insect Fun

I posted this picture on Instagram the other day and I had lots of people commenting and emailing me about it. Everyone wanted to know what I did to make this fun Butterfly Life Cycle bulletin board.

First of all, I did this as an end of unit activity. We had been learning about insects for two weeks and we learned a lot about their life cycles.

Here is a close up of each stage of the life cycle:

I did not take step-by-step pictures....sorry friends! But the steps were easy enough that I don't think you need them. (Also, I forgot my camera at home so I am also apologizing for the crummy phone pics too)

For the eggs, I just cut out a leaf shape on green construction paper and glued on beans. Easy right?

For the caterpillars, we cut egg cartons into four pieces so each student had a piece that could fit three eggs. We painted them green and the next day I cut a slit in the top so we could put our antennae in it.

For the antennae, I cut brown pipe cleaners in half and gave one (one half of a pipe cleaner) to each student. We folded them in half and curled the ends around our fingers. Then stuck them in the slit I cut. Then we glued on the eyes and drew a mouth.

For the chrysalis, we just painted jumbo pasta shells brown. I hung them on the board by putting two push pins in the board and hanging them on top. (Like you would hang a picture on a nail)

The butterflies were by far the most difficult of all the pieces we did. The students got to choose two colors. My butterfly was purple and chevron. I got two pieces of purple and two pieces of chevron. You lay them on top of each other and accordion fold them. Then you bunch up the middle and clip it with the clothespin. We did the antennae the same way we did the caterpillars and stuck them in the clothespin. Then the students used markers to draw a face. (It was still easy, but clipping the clothespin on was a little difficult for them)