Life Cycle of a Butter Fly

This is by far my favorite bulletin board....and I came up with it all by my-self which makes me even prouder of it.  I do this with my kindergarten kids....all 35 of them and they just LOVE it.  I started doing it last year and all....almost all....the teachers just loved it.  I had people coming into my room all day to tell me how much they love it, so of course I HAD to do it again.  I don't like the whole 'you can't do the same thing every year' if it works then why not. 

This board is a full butterfly life cycle.  I also include descriptions of each section with arrows.

First we start with the egg (white pom-pom) on a green leaf.  I have to come up with something to make this stage stand out like the others but just haven't thought about it yet.

I have students bring in cardboard egg cartons.  You will, of course, get both so instead of throwing the Styrofoam ones out I cut them individually and used them as disposable paint cups.  Clean up took no time, which I like with a project that takes no time.  I have the kids write there name on the inside, it is a little awkward for them but they can do it.  Next give them scratch paper to put under their egg carton, this ensures clean tables after painting.  The kids paint the egg carton and when they dry I put on eyes and cut short black antennas fold in half and glue on.  Now, you can't just staple these on because you cut all the 'left over' crap off so they stand evenly.  Solution....hot glue them to the board. 

I did this a little different this year.  The painting process is the same as the egg cartons, except they put their name on the white paper.  When they dry I, again, hot glue them onto a cut up file folder.  Next year before they are put on the board I will cut off the extra folder pieces.  I again hot glue these to the board.  (I have one of those staplers that staple like butter so the 'head' of it wouldn't fit next to the noodle and I didn't want to see all the staples)  I use Jumbo noodles for the chrysalis, there are about 45 in the box....more then they say.  This year I added a 'tree' for the chrysalis to 'hang' from.  I will do this with the eggs next year also. 

Last, my favorite part, the butterfly.  Give each student a sandwich sized Ziploc bag.  Inside is feathers, beads, pom-poms, cut up pipe cleaners, dried balls of play-doh, and ripped tissue paper.  You could also use glitter inside, but I have a thing against glitter....I despise it and never let my kids use it.  It just gets EVERYWHERE and it doesn't clean up.  When they are done, put there name on the zip area.  The next part is done by the teacher, you blow a SLIGHT amount of air into the bag and clasp it in half.  Finish it off with a green or black pipe cleaner for antennas and you are done.  When I hang it I folded the zip back and stapled on the zip that way you can't see the name or that it is a Ziploc bag. 

When you do this board leave a lot of time.  I had to change my background paper, I didn't have enough because of the snowman board with the blue.  The first day, putting paper and boarder up and glueing egg cartons and noodles on the board took up to 3 hours.  The activities take about 20 min from handing out to clean up.  The butterfly takes a little longer, I hand out one material at a time because I don't want them to stuff it too much.  If there is to much it doesn't look good.  This could take 30-40 min depending on how much stuff you have.  Finishing the butterflies will also depend on the amount of students I have 35 so it took me about 20 min.  It is about 30 sec per butterfly, but hanging these and the eggs are simple.