PROJECT: Butterfly Life Cycle with Pasta

A butterfly’s life cycle begins with an egg, which hatches into a caterpillar, which develops into a chrysalis and then metamorphosizes into a butterfly. You can observe all of these stages if you hatch painted lady butterflies in your classroom. And the perfect art project to illustrate the stages can be done with a paper plate and pasta.
You will need:

• A paper plate
• 4 types of pasta: bulgar for eggs; ziti for the caterpillars; shells for the chrysalis; and bowties for the butterflies
• Glue
• Markers, paint or crayons

Directions:

• Make an “X” across the paper plate to divide it into four sections.
• Label each section with a butterfly stage: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly
• Glue the appropriate pasta in each section. Draw or paint leaves. Color the pasta if desired.

I thank Jennifer Best for sharing this project with me. Her kindergarten students at Haynes Center for Enriched Studies did this project when they were learning about insects.

Painted Lady Caterpillars