Our Forest School Home Education Group are currently butterfly mad after reading The Hungry Caterpillar. Here are some low cost and easy activities and resources that we have been using during our sessions over the past few weeks that are perfect for any Forest School Leaders, Teachers, Home Educators or Early Years Practitioners.

1. Butterfly Nature Study Pack from Blossom & Stardust

Photography: Valleys Photography | Butterfly Study Pack: Blossom & Stardust

Everyone knows by now how much we love Blossom & Stardust for our nature study resources and this Butterfly Study Pack definitely does not disappoint! For only £2.99 you get information sheets, worksheets and activity ideas from the anatomy of a butterfly to life cycles to fun fact sheets, my personal favourite is always the poem that comes along with each pack. You can find many of our photos on their Instagram here. 

2. Butterfly Life Cycle Spoons from Kate Narrates

Photography: Valleys Photography | Life Cycle Spoons: Kate Narrates

An absolute staple at our Forest School sessions are story spoons from Kate Narrates. Kate designed these beautiful butterfly life cycle spoons to go along with our butterfly nature study and the children absolutely adore them! They love to organise the spoons into the correct order and read the extra information on the back about each stage of a butterfly’s life cycle. A brilliant resource for all ages!

3. Clay Butterflies

Photography: Valleys Photography 

As a Frobelian-inspired setting, of course, we couldn’t forget to include a clay activity. The possibilities of clay butterflies are endless and really capture the creativity and imagination of the children. They could make butterflies entirely out of clay or could even incorporate other natural materials. For older learners, you could even pair this activity with the Anatomy of a Butterfly sheet to incorporate a science element and ask them to include and point out as many of the different anatomical features as they can. (Clay as an original occupation, more on Froebel’s Occupations coming soon) 

4. Butterfly Hapa Zome

Photography: Valleys Photography 

We adapted hapa zome to create butterfly patterns. If you have never tried hapa zome, here is a short tutorial I made last Summer. You will need 4 leaves; we used ferns as they work really well and place them in the shape of butterfly wings. You then do hapa zome as normal (If you have never tried hapa zome, here is a short tutorial I made last summer) and after you have your leaf print, you draw the body and antennae of the butterflies.

5. Butterfly Leaf Rubbings

Photography: Valleys Photography 

This activity is very similar to the butterfly hapa zome. You place 4 leaves in the shape of butterfly wings, place your paper over the top and use a crayon to press the pattern of the leaves. When you’re done you can add the body and antennae of the butterfly. For older learners, you can incorporate leaf identification into this activity and for younger learners, they could experiment with differnet leaves to find different textures and patterns. 

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