B is for Butterfly: Letter of the Week Preschool Craft
We love letter of the week crafts at our house when our preschoolers are learning their alphabet. Let’s make a B is for butterfly craft with your young learner! This keepsake will make you smile every time you look at it.
This free printable is perfect for fine motor skill development and is one you should add to your alphabet activity learning.
We love doing contact and tissue paper crafts at our house.
They’re simple, but beautiful — and they adorn our windows for months!
SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM TO PRINT THE LETTER B PATTERN
You will need:
- butterfly pattern — scroll to the bottom to download
- two pieces of clear contact paper (about 9×12 inches each) — I strongly recommend Con-Tact brand. Â A good place to find it is online, in the shelf liner section of Walmart or Target, or in the back of Michaels. Â If you don’t already have a roll, don’t be afraid to buy it just to do this craft. You’ll find lots of uses for it!
- colored tissue paper cut into small (about 1-inch) squares
- adult scissors
- masking tape
1. Peel off the backing of one piece of contact paper.
Secure it to the table with masking tape, sticky side up.
2. Lay your butterfly onto the sticky contact paper.
Make sure its head is facing to the right.
This is so that when you display the butterfly, the “B” will not be backward.
3. Now your child can apply the colored tissue paper squares however he wants. No problem if the tissue paper covers part of the black construction paper. This will be the back of the craft.
Encourage older children to cover all the sticky inside of the butterfly.
You can see that I strapped my 15-month old into his high chair so that he could make a butterfly. This is one of the first crafts he’s been able to do with the big kids. He was very careful about placing the tissue paper squares onto the sticky paper. He loved it!
Of course, he’s just a little guy, so his attention span lasted for about two minutes. No problem — this was fun for him, gave him some fine motor practice, and made him very happy to be included.
You can see how this craft is great for kids of different ages.
My Five loved to carefully lay her tissue paper in neat rows. I have done this sort of craft with children up to third grade, and they loved it too.
4. Cover the finished butterfly with the other piece of clear contact paper.
Carefully set it on top, and rub your fingers over the paper to seal the craft together. I was nervous the first time I did this sort of craft with the kids, but it’s actually very hard to mess up.
5. Trim around the outside edge of the craft with a scissors. You should leave at least half an inch around the outside.
As you can see, I cut a lot closer, and the projects did not stay well-sealed.
Aren’t they beautiful? If today were a sunny day you’d see how lovely they look in the window. However, we actually had snow flurries when we we were doing this craft. Yes, in mid-April.
RHYME FOR LETTER B:
Here is the beehive. (show your closed fist)
But where are the bees?
Hiding inside, where no one can see.
Here they come, out of the hive.
One, two, three, four five… (lift each finger as you say the numbers)
They’re alive!
BZZZZZ! (Tickle your child.)
SONG FOR LETTER B:
Did you know that one of the best predictors for kindergarten teachers about their students’ success is if they come to school knowing nursery rhymes? If you haven’t started teaching your preschooler nursery rhymes, it’s not too late!
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.
One for the master
And one for the dame.
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.
Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.
BOOKS FOR LETTER B:
Butterfly, by Susan Canizares
I’m a huge fan of these science emergent readers. They have big pictures and a little bit of text — just right for toddlers with short attention spans, but fun enough for preschoolers. They’re also great first nonfiction books for kids learning to read. Check out Susan Canizares’ books on Amazon – you really can’t go wrong!
Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can you?, by Dr. Seuss
The fun animal sounds and never-ending rhymes make this a fun book and an important one for learning, too. It can be tiresome to read your child the same book over and over, but it’s so important — especially when listening to the book a hundred times helps your child learn to rhyme.
Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
This book, published in 1948, is still a favorite. Little Sal and her mother are picking berries on Blueberry Hill. On the other side of the hill are Little Bear and his mother. Somehow the little ones get mixed up and end up following the wrong mother. All is resolved at the end of this engaging story.
Grumpy Bird, by Jeremy Tankard
Here’s a newer book (2007) about a grumpy bird whose animal friends help to pull him out of a bad mood through exercise and a little companionship. We always giggle when we read this one!
Letter of the Week Curriculum for Preschoolers
Want to do preschool at home with your little one? Grab our complete Alphabet Preschool Curriculum, which is an instant download. In this pack you get 104 activities with printables, templates and instructions for making a craft, hand print art, snack, uppercase and lowercase tracing pages and do a dot pages for each letter of the alphabet.
I am always looking for ideas that all of the kids can do together. I love that this incorporates learning letters and a beautiful sun catcher craft! This week’s theme for the Discover and Explore linky is butterflies. I’d love for you to come share this idea if you are interested.
http://www.fantasticfunandlearning.com/discover-and-explore-butterflies-weekly-themed-linky.html
Glad you like it Shaunna. We will check out your party too!
I love this idea, Crystal. It’s such a fabulous craft to practice letters! Great work!
These turned out great I just pinned and shared them on facebook. Great letter B activity.
Thanks for stopping by last week’s Saturday Showcase! What an awesome project! Stop by next week to link up some more cool projects!
Have a great week!
Susie@bowdabra
http://bowdabrablog.com
Thank you!!! I want to hug your neck!
Okay, so we’ve had a lot of fun this week. 🙂 We just made the sun-catchers – BIG HIT!!!
Also, Grumpy Bird might be one of the cutest books EVAH! 🙂
I just had to tell you it was so fun to fund your website because I have twins too. We made these in preschool today and did the Bee poem the other day. They lvoe that poem!! So fun! Thank you!
We’re doing “B” this week and I’m so glad I found this craft. Going to prep it now while my little girl naps. Pinned!
Oh my goodness I love this! It’s so pretty on the window!
Isn’t it lovely, Jess?
What a great resource for the letter b learning.
Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!
So pretty! Thanks for sharing at After School!!
I love, love, love you ABC crafts (curriculum) they are fabulous. Thinking about doing this for my grandchildren and making it into a ABC book for each of them! Thank you!!!
I adore that you love these crafts. They are so much fun. I hope you enjoy them with your grandbabies!
Thanks
Love it
Thank you!!