of the year was inspired by the Annual Monarch Festival that was held near our school last weekend.
We followed the instructions by Rainbow River Designs for making these wool butterflies as seen in the Spring 2008 issue of Living Crafts magazine. I quickly came up with a little trick to help my three and four year olds put these together without turning the wool into a big ball.
After bending the chenille stem in half and choosing the colors for their butterfly the children placed the wool flat on the table. By laying two pencils down on the wool to help guide the children, they were easily able to fold the roving to the center to create the wings.
The second step I helped them with was to curl the butterfly's antennae. A very difficult task for small fingers. By my holding a pencil firmly up next to the chenille stem and allowing the children to slowly turn the pencil toward them, they were able to create the antennae.
In both steps I had the child gently pull the pencils out to see what they had created. The look of pure joy and wonderment on their little faces was priceless. Each butterfly was then tied to a stick and we took them outside to fly them around a bit.
Before going to the Monarch Festival, Peanut wanted to try and make some of the butterflies too, so we did and made them into a little mobile for the school.
Up next, I'm still working on a craft project to tie into Saturday's Cattail Days celebration. Any ideas?
