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Bright Ideas for Little Learners

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spring, Tot School

Tot School: Butterflies

May 2, 2017

Tons of butterfly themed activities and ideas. Weekly plan includes books, literacy, math, science, art, sensory bins, and more! Perfect for tot school, preschool, or kindergarten.

Tot school this week is all about butterflies. It’s been a rainy few days over here, so I am thankful we had a week full of fun exploration to keep us busy indoors. 

Tons of butterfly themed activities and ideas. Weekly plan includes books, literacy, math, science, art, sensory bins, and more! Perfect for tot school, preschool, or kindergarten.

**This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. View our full disclosure policy here.**

  Here were our plans for our butterfly theme:

Tons of butterfly themed activities and ideas. Weekly plan includes books, fine motor, gross motor, sensory bins, snacks and more! Perfect for tot school, preschool, or kindergarten.

And here are the details of each activity:

5 great books to read aloud for a butterfly theme. Perfect for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten.

Our favorite butterfly books for the week were:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar By Eric Carle
Caterpillar to Butterfly By Laura Marsh
TenLittle Caterpillars By Bill Martin Jr
ClaraCaterpillar By Pamela Duncan Edwards
From Caterpillar to Butterfly By Deborah Heiligmann

This cut the fruit activity paired perfectly with "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and was such a fun way to get our fine motor practice in with a butterfly theme. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Cut the Fruits:

  For a little scissor challenge this week I printed out a whole pile of fruit clip art images for Miss Madelynn to practice with. Most of these shapes are too hard for her to cut out exactly, but since she tends to be a bit of a perfectionist (hmmm, wonder where she got that from…) I thought it would be good for her to work on just “trying her best.” After a bit of frustration with not being able to do it perfectly, she settled in to cutting close to the lines and being happy with that. Of course our little hungry caterpillar friend was cheering her on the whole time 😉

We LOVE this very hungry caterpillar sensory bin. So many fun pieces to retell with and explore! Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Hungry Caterpillar Retelling:

  I was inspired by the cute little hole punches in The Very Hungry Caterpillar and knew they would make for a great lacing activity.  I printed out clip art to match the story, hole punched them and Madelynn laced the pieces together to tell the story in order.

These dot marker butterflies were a super easy project to work on fine motor skills, symmetry and color identification with a butterfly theme. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Dot Marker Butterflies:

Dot stampers are a great go to fine motor activity. I love how easy it is to spice up a plain old coloring page with bright beautiful dots. I printed a few of these butterfly outlines and let Madelynn design her own butterflies. Easy Peasy!

These beaded butterflies turned out so cute and incorporated lots of fine motor practice. Great for spring in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Beaded Butterfly:

Beads + pipe cleaners = amazing fine motor creations.  To create these butterflies we used 2 pipe cleaners. After Madelynn nearly filled them with beads, we twisted each side into a large oval with a little bit extra left for the antenna/body.  Then we twisted each oval in the center to create the upper and lower wing for each side.  Using the small piece of pipe cleaner in the center we added one bead on each side for a spacer and then twisted them together to connect both sides and create antennas.

We had so much fun making these pom pom caterpillars for out butterfly theme. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Pom Pom Stamp Caterpillars:

To stamp these little cuties, I attached pom poms to clothespins, and gave Madelynn 2 small cups of paint.  We dipped, stamped and repeated all over the page to create crawly little hungry caterpillars.

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! Acting out the stages of the butterfly life cycle was a really fun gross motor activity. Great for spring in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Butterfly Life Cycle:

For me one of the best ways to remember something new is by acting it out, so we acted out each part of the butterfly life cycle.  We started out curling up in a little ball for the egg. Then we crawled on our tummies like caterpillars. Next, we hid in our chrysalis staying very still.  Last we emerged as  butterfly flapping our wings and flying around the room.

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! This feed the hungry caterpillar game was an easy and fun gross motor activity for our butterfly theme. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Feed the Hungry Caterpillar:

  For some throwing/gross motor practice, I printed a large caterpillar head and attached it to a small crate. Then I gave Madelynn another crate filled with fruits and food from The Very Hungry Caterpillar. She tried her best to throw them into the basket carnival game style, which turned out to be quite challenging!

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! Practice throwing and catching with this catch the butterflies gross motor activity. Great for spring in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Catch the Butterflies:

  I found this net in the Target dollar spot and knew we had to use it for some butterfly catching.  Well it was rainy and cold all week which means no butterflies to chase outside. I  improvised with some bean bag butterflies and threw them in the air for Madelynn to try to try to catch.

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! Dancing around is one of our favorite gross motor activities so we added scarf butterfly wings to make it a little more fun. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Butterfly Dancing:

For our butterfly dancing activity, first I tied a few of these scarves together to make colorful flowing wings. Then I put some soft classical music on and Madelynn fluttered around the room flapping her beautiful wings.

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! Practice throwing and catching with this catch the butterflies gross motor activity. Great for spring in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Butterfly Color Relay:

    For this activity I printed purple, pink, and yellow butterflies and scattered them around the room. Then I labeled 3 buckets with color words for sorting.  We took turns running back and forth with one butterfly at a time and sorted it into the correct bucket until all of the butterflies were caught.

These yummy snacks are perfect for a butterfly theme in tot school, preschool, or kindergarten!

Butterfly Theme Snacks:

PB & J Butterflies: Cut an Uncrustable sandwich in half for the wings, add a cheese stick in the center for the body.   Waffle Butterflies: Toast and cut a waffle in half for the base of the wings, then decorate with cut up fruit.   Grape Caterpillars: Skewer green grapes for the body, then add a strawberry for the head. Use candy eyes and raisins to make the face.
Fruit Butterflies: Slice strawberries into thin pieces. Arrange blueberries and strawberry slices into butterflies on a plate. Add small grape slivers for antennae.

Butterfly Pretzels: Dip regular shaped and stick pretzels in white candy melt, arrange in the shape of a butterfly on wax paper, add sprinkles and chocolate chips to decorate

We LOVE this very hungry caterpillar sensory bin. So many fun pieces to retell with and explore! Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Hungry Caterpillar Sensory Bin:

  In this bin: Black beans, play food, caterpillar toy, mini cups

We LOVE this butterfly play dough tray. Play dough is the perfect sensory and fine motor material to explore! Great for a butterfly theme in tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

 Butterfly Play Dough:

  In this bin: Play dough, rollers, butterfly cookie cutter, gems, googly eyes, buttons

We LOVE this butterfly life cycle sensory bin. So many fun textures to explore. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Life Cycle Sensory Bin:

  In this bin: spaghetti noodles (cooked and dyed green), butterfly shape pasta (dyed pink and purple), green rotini noodles (taken from pre-dyed rainbow rotini box), cups for sorting

Butterfly Sensory Bin:

We LOVE this butterfly sensory bin. Lots of fun pieces to pretend, play and explore. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

In this bin: Plastic grass, butterfly toys, silk flowers

Learning is more fun when it involves movement! This feed the hungry caterpillar game was an easy and fun gross motor activity for our butterfly theme. Great for tot school, preschool, or even kindergarten!

Feeding Butterflies Sensory Bin:

In this bin: Mini cups, colored water, toy butterflies, flowers, pipettes

Want all of this week’s Butterflies activities for tot school?  You can grab them here:
On my site : Butterflies Plans & Printables On TpT: Butterflies Plans & Printables

Tons of butterfly themed activities and ideas. Weekly plan includes books, literacy, math, science, art, sensory bins, and more! Perfect for tot school, preschool, or kindergarten.

Or you can grab our entire year of themes and plans:
On my site here: Tot School Bundle On TpT here: Tot School Bundle

45 Weeks of engaging themed activities and ideas ready to go for your 2-3 year old. Weekly plans include suggested books, fine motor activities, gross motor ideas, sensory bins, snacks and more! Everything you need for a year packed full of Tot School fun and learning.

Then check out the rest of our 35+ themes on the Tot School Curriculum Main Page.

by Jessica 
12 Comments

About Jessica

Bright ideas for the little learners ~ Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten is an education blog dedicated to fresh, engaging, and fun teaching ideas for toddlers, preschoolers, and the primary classroom.

View all posts by Jessica

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Comments

  1. Madeline Busko says: March 30, 2019 at 4:56 pm

    I absolutely love this! I am a momma to 4 littles and this is perfect! I was wondering if had the chance to Frog, Reinder, Five sense and Thanksgiving?

    Reply
    • Jessica says: May 2, 2019 at 2:34 pm

      All of the additional Tot School themes have been added. You can find them all here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Tot-School-Toddler-Curriculum-Plans-and-Printables-BUNDLE-3280882

      Reply
  2. Bethany says: April 11, 2022 at 2:36 pm

    This is amazing!! I’m going to incorporate it for my 15 month old and 3 almost 4 yr old Nanny kids!! I also have butterfly magnets!
    Look forward to reading more!
    Bethany

    Reply

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