Hands On Learning: Butterfly Life Cycle

One of our favorite activities is doing matching with a book. We do this often with the toobs that we can match to a book. We have been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly. A recent book find at the library lead us to this great hands on activity.

I love pulling out books and matching them to items we can use to match on the pages. This allows for multiple matching on each page. This is a great way to read the book. You read the book and listen for the key words: monarch, eggs, milk weed, caterpillar, and chrysalis.

You can do this two different ways: read the book first and then do the activity or read the book and do the activity. For a younger child I was would read the book first. If they are older it is fun to do the matching and listening while reading.

What you need for this activity: Safari Ltd Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly and Monarch and Milkweed.

I read the page and then we match the butterfly life cycle to the page. There are many different types of items to look for on each page.

This is a fun hands on way to learn. Be sure to let them have fun. Our caterpillar had to eat some of the leaves while we were reading. And he had to be sure to hang upside down to get read for shedding his skin.