Butterfly Life Cycle Worksheet
Butterfly life cycle worksheet pages are an easy way to learn about the different stages of a butterfly with your students. There are so many creative lesson plans and activities you can use to introduce your students to life cycles, but butterfly life cycle activities are my favorite!
Keep reading to discover some of my favorite hands-on butterfly activities and life cycle of the butterfly worksheets for extra learning. Plus, check out my favorite life cycle of a butterfly song to sing in the classroom and fun videos for even more science fun in the classroom this year.
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Teaching Kids About Life Cycles
A life cycle is a series of stages a living thing goes through during its life. All plants and animals go through life cycles.
It is helpful to use diagrams to show the stages, which often include starting as a seed, egg, or live birth, then growing up and reproducing. Life cycles repeat again and again.
Teaching kids about life cycles helps them to develop a better understanding of the natural world. There are so many ways you can help your early elementary students begin to understand these complex cycles and stages.
Here are a few of the ways I like to teach life cycles in my classroom.
Build Background Knowledge
Don’t forget to check your local library for butterfly books to begin building background knowledge with great books. Reading aloud to children isn’t just a great way to build literacy skills, you can use it to introduce new science lessons too.
Here are some of our favorite books about butterflies:
- The Amazing Life Cycle of Butterflies by Kay Barnham is filled with interesting facts about butterflies.
- Nat Geo Kids: Caterpillar to Butterfly by Laura Marsh is the perfect addition to your science center this year.
- Becoming a Butterfly by Robert McNaughton is a beautiful book about this beautiful species.
- The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is a fun book for curious kids to enjoy in the classroom and at home.
Incorporate Interactive Notebooks
Interactive notebook activities are a fun way to explore the butterfly’s life cycle with your students. These notebooks go beyond just taking notes and their ability to incorporate art helps children manipulate information and learn new things. You can add my butterfly life cycle worksheet pages to create an interactive science journal with your kids.
Add Butterfly Life Cycle Songs and Videos
Songs and videos are a fun way to engage visual and auditory learners in your classroom. Check out the free Butterflies lesson on Brain Pop Jr. for a great video you can use with your butterfly science lesson this year. Then, try singing the Life Cycle of a Butterfly Song from Jack Hartmann with your students. It’s good for getting those wiggles out and encouraging healthy physical activity while you learn.
Different Stages of a Butterfly
Butterflies transition through 4 distinct stages, making them the perfect candidate for teaching kids about life cycles. The first stage in the butterfly life cycle is the egg stage. During this stage, adult female butterflies lay eggs on plants.
In just four days, the eggs will hatch. This begins the second stage in the life cycle of a butterfly. The feeding stage is the second stage in the butterfly life cycle and one we are very familiar with; it’s also known as the caterpillar, or larva, stage.
Caterpillars love to eat! They usually eat for 10 to 12 days and love to eat all the parts of plants including stems, leaves, flowers, and seeds. Caterpillars will even eat dead plants!
After the larva stage, caterpillars transition to the third stage in the life cycle known as the transition stage. This is also called the pupa stage.
During the pupa stage, the caterpillar transforms inside a protective chrysalis shell. Finally, after the metamorphosis process, the adult butterfly emerges.
Butterfly Life Cycle Worksheet
There’s a lot to learn about the different stages of a butterfly! I’ve created a printable butterfly journal you can use to help your students understand metamorphosis and the butterfly life cycle. These butterfly printables will make it easier and a lot more fun to learn about these amazing creatures!
Students can use my printable Butterfly Life Cycle Journal to record and track their observations while tracking the life cycle of a butterfly from egg to adult butterfly. This includes variations to the Pupa stage. One booklet reads Pupa, and one reads Chrysalis so you can choose which one you’d like.
I’ve also created two different printable covers to encourage even more creativity in your classroom. You can choose the butterfly journal cover featuring the life cycle of a butterfly or choose the colorful adult butterfly page. These printable butterfly life cycle worksheets are so easy to use with very little prep work for teachers and lots of fun for younger children and older children too.
Butterfly Crafts for Your Science Lessons
Adding art to your science lessons encourages kids to think creatively and helps students build connections between subjects. Plus, butterfly crafts and art projects help kids practice fine motor skills they’ll need for handwriting and tying their shoes.
Discover some of my favorite Butterfly Crafts for Kids and add a few to your lesson plans all about butterflies this year. You can do crafts with your students for every stage in the butterfly life cycle!
Check out my list of 25 Cute Caterpillar Crafts for the eating stage in the life cycle of a butterfly. Plus, these pair up perfectly with the Eric Carle book and the science worksheets mentioned above.
Hands-On Butterfly Life Cycle Activities
There are so many hands-on fun butterfly activities you can incorporate into your lesson plans all about butterflies too. Discover some of my favorite hands-on ways to engage your kinesthetic learners in these life cycle lessons below.
Life Cycle of a Butterfly Sensory Bin
Sensory bins encourage multisensory learning for kids of all ages. They’re an ideal activity for helping young learners to build a brain-body connection and begin to explore new concepts with all their senses.
Add 4 Piece Butterfly Life Cycle Figures to a sensory bin with your favorite filler.
Wooden Montessori Life Cycle Puzzle
Puzzles are perfect for encouraging kids to build critical thinking skills and practice problem-solving.
This layered Montessori Butterfly Life Cycle Puzzle will help your students memorize the stages in the life cycle of a butterfly while developing spatial awareness and critical thinking skills too.
Butterfly Garden Kit
My favorite hands-on way to learn about the butterfly life cycle is by observing it. You can use a Butterfly Garden Kit to hatch your own butterfly eggs into real caterpillars and watch them in the classroom as they transform into the adult stage. Finally, release your adult butterflies into the wild and watch as they fly away.
Then, grab your own printable pack of butterfly themed worksheets. It’s the perfect way to begin your own butterfly unit study or preschool butterfly theme lessons this Spring.
What’s your favorite butterfly life cycle activity to do in the classroom? Is there another insect activity you enjoy doing with your preschoolers? Share your great ideas for teaching kids all about the life cycle of these amazing creatures in the comment section. I can’t wait to read them!
