Setting up the Classroom for the Butterfly Theme

Last Updated on April 27, 2024 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: This week our toddler and preschool classroom is set up for the butterfly theme. While we learn about the butterfly life cycle, we will have lots of hands-on learning activities offered throughout our classroom.

Once we return from spring break, we start focusing on our butterfly theme.

We order caterpillars and observe them grow bigger and bigger, until they go into their chrysalis.

When they emerge from their chrysalises as butterflies, it’s magical! We celebrate by taking them outside and releasing them, waving as they fly away.

We add lots of related activities in the classroom with lots of play and exploration.

Setting up the Classroom for the Butterfly Theme

Resources: Bugs and Butterflies Theme Ideas

Welcome to my classroom! As soon as you enter, you will notice butterfly books displayed on top of the shelves. I love to take advantage of every part of our room, and it’s important to have a literacy rich environment.

Watch: Bugs and Butterflies Classroom Tour

Dramatic Play

We are having a butterfly tea party!

Grab some butterfly wings, or put on a jacket, or a tu-tu. Whatever is your fancy.

Related: 25+ Dramatic Play Activities

Science

We pulled out our felt butterfly life cycle pieces and displayed them on the flannel board.

I found some magnetic butterflies in plastic containers from the dollar store. They are solar powered and look like they are really fluttering around!

We added a butterfly hand puppet and tacked a poster on the wall.

I also added some butterfly exploration near our dramatic play area. I hung a big butterfly in the window (it’s meant to be part of a costume.)

On the shelf below we have magnifying blocks, magnifying tables, and binoculars, as well as some butterfly resources (some aren’t shown in this photo).

You can see our favorite science materials here:

Activity Table

We have 2 long tables pushed together for our activity table.

These tables are also where we have snack, family style, and where we have art.

Literacy

Our reading area is in between our activity table and our dramatic play area. We keep books in our bookshelf, on the “coffee table”, and there is also a basket of board books between the couch and chair.

Whenever it’s time to transition, we have his basket placed on the carpet in our circle time area. The children gather there and take a book out of the basket to look at until it’s time for us to move to something else, like going to recess.

Books

Butterfly Butterfly: A Book of Colors

Becoming Butterflies

Caterpillar to Butterfly

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Light Table

We found some butterfly transparencies in our butterfly theme box that work perfectly on our light table. I do not know who donated them to the box, but I love them! We added some of the plastic butterflies that I found from the Dollar Tree.

The poster shows different types of butterflies. It’s been around for years so I am once again not sure of where it originally came from. (This happens when you’ve been teaching in the same school for almost 2 decades!)

Sensory Bin

We had a mixture of dried beans and lentils in our storage room, so I used them as the base for this butterfly sensory bin.

I added my favorite little baskets, our tree blocks, our butterfly life cycle model, the butterflies from the Dollar Tree, as well as the bug containers and nets, also from the Dollar Tree.