This spring, the boys and I did a unit study on the life cycle of a butterfly. We ordered a Butterfly Garden kit from Insect Lore through Amazon, and they sent us five baby painted lady caterpillars. Our boys are 14, 7, and 6 years old, so I wanted to have activities suitable for them all. In my research, I found this cute caterpillar craft at Fireflies & Mud Pies.

As part of our unit study, we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and incorporated it into this arts and crafts project. Even our teen read the book several times to his brothers and made his own caterpillar.

Because this crafty caterpillar is assembled with paper fasteners, it moves and can be posed in several positions to match the caterpillar in Carle’s story. Fireflies and Mud Pies has a handy template on their website. We traced circles with a cup for ours. Each kid will need six circles to assemble the body of their caterpillar. We also drew our own small circle to be cut out for the mouth and two sets of ovals to make the eyes. The template on the Fireflies and Mud Pies website includes these as well.

The paper fasteners we bought on Amazon are super cute and multi-colored. Unfortunately, they were miniature and too small to work with a hole punch. We poked holes through for the kids to make it work.

Materials:

• Paper Caterpillar Template (available at Fireflies & Mud Pies)
• White Cardstock
• Washable Paint
• Paintbrushes
• Brass Paper Fasteners
• Scissors
• Single Hole Punch
• Pipe Cleaners
• Tacky Craft Glue
• Tape

Instructions

1. Print the template or draw five big circles, one small circle, and two sets of ovals.
2. Invite the kids to paint their shapes.
3. Invite the kids to cut out their shapes when the paint is dry. With little ones, help them if needed, but remember that the process is more important than what the finished product looks like, and using scissors to cut out their work is excellent for practicing fine motor skills.
4. Use the single-hole punch on the big circles.
5. Use paper fasteners to assemble the caterpillar’s body.
6. Glue the caterpillar’s eyes and mouth on its head.
7. Let your child choose their pipe cleaner, then cut it down to about 4-inches
8. Fold the pipe cleaner into a V-shaped curve and then tape it to the back of the caterpillar’s head.

Ours were a lot of fun to make. My husband and I each made one too, so the kids named them after their live caterpillars, and they all turned out super cute! The above picture is the kid’s finished products in the highest place of honor in our house – the fridge.

Making this craft is a wonderful opportunity to encourage children to use their imagination and be creative. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar several times after the kids made the craft and they arranged and rearranged their caterpillars to act out the story.