Hungry Caterpillars & Beautiful butterflies ~ Prep art lesson

The theme of ‘change’ is a perennial one in primary school, and for Prep students, caterpillars to butterflies along with Eric Carle’s ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ is a wonderful inspiration for art lessons. Last year’s Preps made painted paper caterpillar & butterfly collages which were amazing. This year in the classroom they were looking more at chemical change, so I decided to do colour mixing activities- primary colour mixing to make secondary colours.

I shared The Very Hungry Caterpillar story and we looked closely at the colours on the caterpillar. The students were given a small pieces of blue and yellow Model Magic paper clay to roll and knead together to make green.

They then tore off small pieces to roll into balls, pushing only lightly together to join. Some decided to make a hump on their caterpillar. Next they were given a small piece of red for the head and a tiny bit of yellow to separate in two for the eyes.

short video of process

To make purple for the antennae, they were given a tiny amount of blue and red to then roll thinly to attach to the top of the head. They just used a green texta to add dots on the yellow eyes. Brown for the legs.

Butterflies were made by using food dye in dauber bottles on a folded piece of kitchen paper. Students daubed the colours any way they liked and when opened could see the design was mirrored on the other side. (Discuss symmetry!)

The drew a half butterfly wing design and I used that to cut out the folded kitchen paper when dry. Students chose an insect body (made by Roylco), put a chenille stick through the head for antennae and I fan folded their butterfly to insert though the slot in the body.

I made a stand for the butterflies and caterpillars from wire embedded in plaster which the Preps painted in green tones.

The Preps then cut out a leaf shape and added lines for the leaf veins. I taped the leaf with the caterpillar onto the shorter piece of wire and simply wound the other taller wire around the butterfly body. The wire could be adjusted to suit viewing.

Video of completed models

Painted Paper Butterflies~ Eric Carle inspired- Prep

If students have not been introduced to the books and art of Eric Carle, read The Very Hungry Caterpillar or watch the animated video on YouTube. We discussed how he made the illustrations and watched this video showing his process.

Children made painted paper with WARM colours. They painted their entire paper with one warm colour then add texture by scraping a texture comb through the wet paint, then used texture wands to dab or roll another warm colour over the paper.

We discussed SYMMETRY- mirror images- same on both sides and looked at some pictures of butterflies and noticed the symmetrical designs. We talked about SHAPES – organic: like a butterfly, a leaf, a flower etc, and geometric like squares and triangles.

Students folded their dry painted paper in half (colour inside) and draw half a butterfly- maybe a ‘B’ shape or chosen wing design next to the fold and cut out.

A long brown strip for body was glued in the middle. Shapes were cut and added for the head, eyes and antennae.

Cool coloured papers (scraps) were folded and used to cut out (two at a time) so shapes could be placed symmetrically on each side of the butterfly wings.

Lesson plan

‘STRIPE’ and Paypal are used to process payment. Please check you type in the correct email for link to be sent automatically. The link will also be on the CONFIRMATION page after you pay to download immediately. Any problems contact me at primaryschoolart1@gmail.com

Hungry Caterpillars ~ Eric Carle inspired. Prep collage art lesson

Eric Carle’s children’s books and illustrations are a delight to read to children and also a wonderful inspiration so many art projects- who doesn’t love painted paper collages?

The Prep students (first year at Primary school) were working on a theme of “Growth and Change” and the story “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” fits in beautifully. This art lesson is the first part- of course there has to be the cocoon and then the butterfly!

We watched an animated version of the story on Youtube, and I also had a copy of the book to look carefully at the pictures. We discussed how they think Eric Carle made the pictures- someone did eventually proffer that he painted paper and then cut and pasted it. We talked about how he might have got the effects of texture. I then showed them a short video of Carle making making paper, and collaging a butterfly, so they could see his process.

Making painted paper:

Students were given a tray with a dark green, an ‘apple’ green, and white. They were instructed not to actually mix the colours, but to double dip to cover their entire paper and then while the paint was wet to use a texture wand or comb to dab or scrape through the wet paint. They also did a smaller piece of paper with red, yellow and purple paint in sections. These are left to dry for the next session.

We looked at Eric Carle’s caterpillar and decided that the shape needed for the body parts was an oval. So to make a template for the caterpillar’s body, each child was given a smallish piece of cardboard to fill it with an oval shape. After checking with me that it was big enough, they cut it out and used that to trace onto the back of their painted paper as many as they could. (we folded the paper in half so they would cut two out at a time) They traced a slightly bigger head on the red paper and used the yellow to cut circles for eyes, the purple for antennae.

I demonstrated how they could glue down their ovals- we talked about arranging and overlapping- once again referring to Carle’s caterpillar. Students cut out yellow eyes, purple antennae and green circles for on top of eyes and a small triangle nose. I cut the little ‘L’ shaped feet for them from scrap brown painted paper.

Full Lesson Plan with Learning Intentions, Success Criteria, (also enlarged for display on screen or print) lesson activities, youtube video links, and self evaluation rubric.