Invitation to Create the Life Cycle of a Butterfly with Loose Parts

To continue learning and exploring about all things bugs we invited the children to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly. We read the pop-up Butterfly book that we got from Books Inc. The story shows the different stages of a butterfly’s life cycle: eggs on a leaf, caterpillars hatching, a chrysalis, a butterfly emerging, and eggs being laid all over again. This book is great for the introduction to the topic of life cycles, the different stages of a butterfly’s life, vocabulary about habitats and animal life.

After reading the story we drew out the outlines of the life cycle of the butterfly on butcher paper and provided loose parts (wood bits, wood rounds, wood circles, translucent pebbles, grappats, translucent shapes, butterflies, foraged leaves/twigs/flowers) for the children to freely create on all the lines.

Providing loose parts to decorate and create on butcher paper inspires the children to think more creatively while providing endless opportunities to continuously stimulate their curiosity and wonder about the world. Since loose parts are dynamic in nature, it brings about the authenticity of formulating ideas and you can see a child's creativity shine in their creations.

As they created the different parts of the life cycle, more discussion opened up in detail about the butterflies, the children created patterns, compared the different materials they were using, counted and sorted the loose parts, collaborated together to create, all while learning more about the insects.