Eric Carle Inspired Butterfly Art

First of all, I have to give a shout out for an awesome resource for teachers and parents who are interested in doing creative art experiences with their kids. Kid Art Lit is run by two creative moms who promote joining quality books with process art experiences (two of my favorite things!). In addition to running a subscription service, they host weekly challenges on Instagram with so many great ideas for projects (#kidartlit), they do live demonstrations, and have a group on Facebook. Check them out! I was inspired after watching one of their video demonstrations to do this Eric Carle project with my kids, and I'm so glad I did!! It was so fun. This became our culminating project for our butterfly life cycle study this year.

Step One: Paint
We watched a video of Eric Carle painting and creating textures on tissue paper, so we tried out that medium also. Knowing the tissue paper would be fragile and possible frustrating to work with, I also ironed some coffee filters for something slightly thicker. We used different kinds of materials to add texture to the paint, including our fingers. :)

Step Two: Cut

We let our paintings dry until our next class, and then started the cutting process. I pre-cut some shapes with butterflies in mind, but wanted to involve the kids in thinking about the shapes they wanted or could see in Eric Carle's design. We also used hole punchers to create circles and holes. 

Step Three: Design and Glue
To make this process extra special, we used canvas as the backdrop for our butterflies, but you could easily use paper as well. We started by selecting the pieces we thought would be best for the head and body of our butterflies, and placed that in the middle of our canvas. I placed glue mixed with a little water in jars with paintbrushes, and I modeled how to spread the glue on the canvas first, place the pieces, and then paint lightly over it again with the glue.

I loved this stage because every student became engaged in the process for awhile, and each butterfly turned out so differently. I couldn't resist joining in and creating my own butterfly as well, it was just such a fun process.

 You really could make anything with this process, and I'm already looking forward to trying it out again sometime soon.

Life Cycle Study, Part 3: Waiting for the Butterflies

While we waited for our butterflies to emerge, we explored the ways the caterpillars would need to change to become butterflies, like growing antennae and colorful wings. 

We used a chromatography process to think about "growing colors" and wings by drawing colorful circles on coffee filters, placing them in water, and watching the colors move and grow up through the filter. 

And then we made them into butterflies, along with some painted doilies we made as well. With one class, we tried to make butterflies with 4 wings to be like the real butterflies.

Pollination

We have also been thinking about how butterflies and bees and other insects help the environment by pollinating flowers. 

Exploring Other Insects

We also continued to spend some time exploring other insects and how they help our world. 

We played this beehive game with alphabet letters. 

We did some insect painting. One class had weather that worked for painting outside, while the other class wasn't as lucky that day.

And we read a lot of Eric Carle books about insects to get ready for our butterfly art project inspired by his work. (More on that to come!)

Life Cycle Study, Part 2: In the Chrysalis

Our caterpillars grew and grew, and then they started making their way to the top of the cup.
Then we noticed that some started to hang into a 'J' shape, which means they are getting ready to form their chrysalis.

One by one, each caterpillar changed. Look carefully to find the one in chrysalis.

Some of us were even able to observe one as it was changing. The caterpillar sheds it's skin one last time, hardens and wiggles around until it is completely sealed inside.

We counted and documented how many had changed by the end of the first day.

We also noticed how the caterpillars were hanging from a very small thread, and used tape and pipe cleaners to explore caterpillars hanging and forming their chrysalises.

When we came back to school the next class day, all of the caterpillars had changed.

We were able to observe them more closely when we moved them into the butterfly habitat.

And now we wait!

Rainy Spring

It has been really rainy around here lately, so we brought back a favorite art process to explore dripping water and rain on paper umbrellas.

Book Love: Some Bugs

Some Bugs by Angela DiTerlizzi is one of my favorite bug books. (In fact, I've written about it before, but wanted to share how we used it this time around!) It has simple text, delightful illustrations, and inspires us to get outside and find some bugs! My classes this year (especially the afternoon class) have been super interested in finding bugs outside, and it has been fun to dig a little deeper into this topic. 

Read-Aloud Tips: There are so many little details in the illustrations of this book, and it can be fun to take the time to notice things like what shapes did the illustrator use to create the bug? or how many of this type of bug can you find on the page? There are also fun movement words throughout the book that you can act out, like rolling up like a pill bug or crawling like a caterpillar. 

Connecting Activity: Bug Art 

We used bright colored paint and various materials to stamp and paint different shapes onto the paper. 

This was a fun process, and it didn't matter if your shapes looked like bugs or not because then we pulled out the googly eyes and those brought the process to like. They also remind me of the big bug eyes in the illustrations of the book.