The completed butterflies.

Crafty Caterpillars and Brilliant Butterflies

Celebrate spring with your students by creating these colorful critters out of repurposed cardboard rolls. They'll make great props for read-alongs, life cycle lessons, or rainy-day crafting! 

Carl the Caterpillar Directions:

Supplies:

  • Paper towel or toilet paper roll
  • Strips of colorful paper, paints, or tissue paper
  • Small piece of cardboard
  • Glue (I found that a hot glue gun worked a bit more reliably than regular white glue. If using hot glue, ensure that gluing is completed by adults or with supervision.)
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Pom poms or other decoration (optional)
Supplies needed.
Get your supplies together! I ended up using hot glue and collecting some twigs for the butterflies later on (Credit: NOAA).

Steps:

  1. Cut out paper strips or other decoration for the roll and glue them on.
  2. Twist pipe cleaners around the body to form legs.
  3. Cut a small circle the size of the end of the roll out of the extra piece of cardboard and draw a face.
  4. Glue the face onto the end of the roll. Place a pipe cleaner for antennae behind the cardboard face and secure it when you glue.
The finished caterpillar.
Carl the completed caterpillar! (Credit: NOAA).

Mo and Maurice the Butterflies

Supplies:

  • Toilet paper or paper towel roll(s)
  • Strips of colorful paper, paints, or tissue paper
  • Small twigs
  • Glue
  • Pipe cleaners (or smaller twigs) for antennae
  • Pom poms or other decoration (optional)

Steps: 

Pieces of toilet paper roll cut into strips, and those pieces decorated to become butterflies.
Steps 1 and 3: Cut pieces of cardboard roll, then paint them however you'd like (Credit: NOAA).
  1. Cut four equal pieces (around 1 inch wide) from each roll. Bend them at both ends to make a "wing" shape.
  2. Paint the twig bodies (and antennae, if you're using them) black.
  3. Paint, draw, or glue designs onto your butterfly wings, and let them dry.
  4. Glue it all together! Glue the antennae (two thin twigs or pipe cleaners) onto the twig body and then glue the wings onto either side of the body. Let it dry.
The finished crafts.
It turns out that caterpillars aren't the only things that turn into butterflies! Mo and Maurice started out as humble toilet paper rolls (Credit: NOAA).

Shoutout to PBS Kids for inspiring these crafts! 

 

For citation purposes, unless otherwise noted, this article was authored by the NOAA Marine Debris Program.

Last updated Tue, 08/06/2024 - 02:55 pm EDT