Last Updated on May 17, 2025 by Sheryl Cooper
Inside: This butterfly craft results in a beautiful spring decoration for your home or classroom. We used industrial-sized coffee filters along with vibrant watercolors. Threading beads on the antennae add some fine motor fun!
Every spring we love putting together a fun butterfly craft for preschoolers. We order our caterpillars and they arrive after spring break. This is a highlight every year!
We read books about how caterpillars turn into butterflies, we explore the butterfly life cycle on our science shelf, and we make butterfly art!
For this particular art activity, we wanted to add lots of fine motor opportunities. We included painting, squeezing, twisting, and threading! It took several days, but our preschoolers loved every step.
How to Make a Beautiful Butterfly Craft with Preschoolers
What you will need:
First, paint the dowels.
Paint the wooden dowels with tempera paint and let them dry.
Then, paint the coffee filters.
Dilute your liquid watercolors with water and brush them onto the coffee filters.
Assemble the butterflies.
Once the coffee filters are dry, scrunch the centers and loop a pipe cleaner around it and attach to the painted dowel. Twist another pipe cleaner around the top of the dowel.
Provide a container of pony beads and invite the children to thread them onto the pipe cleaners at the top of the dowels. These will be the antennae.
Bugs and Butterfly Lesson Plans
I’m so excited to be one of the authors of these hands-on lesson plans for toddlers and for preschoolers!
Easy to follow lesson plans include activity modifications and adaptations to meet the needs of all learners.
Note: This is a digital product. Links to downloads will be sent to you after purchase!
For more information, click on the graphics below:
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Thanks for the ideas i’ve been assigned to build a school playground and think i shall input an outdoor painting area.
We love our outdoor painting area! We recently purchased a plexi-glass double-sided easel for outdoors and the preschoolers LOVE it.
This is a great spring activity! Love that coffee filters are the wings of the butterfly.
We loved raising butterflies last year, and I love the pretty butterflies you made to go with it!