Looking for a fun and easy spring craft for kids?
This paper bag butterfly craft is great for little kids in preschool, kindergarten and elementary school. It’s the newest addition to our paper bag puppet crafts for kids.
And, like many of our other posts, we’ve included a free printable butterfly template to make it even easier on you to make with the kids!
There’s something kids just love about butterflies. It could be their bright colors, their large wings or something else entirely, but kids (and adults!) are mesmerized by them.
We’re showing you how to turn a plain ‘ol brown paper bag into a bright butterfly ready to take flight!
Read our directions or watch our quick video tutorial to see just how easy they are to make!
Butterfly Craft For Preschool
Supplies
- Brown paper bag
- Colored card stock or construction paper
- White card stock
- Colorful pipe cleaners
- Scissors
- Glue stick
- Tape (optional)
- .25″ circle punch (optional)
- Markers (optional)
- Butterfly craft template (download form located at the end of this page)
Directions
Download the butterfly craft template, print out and cut out the pieces you’ll need.
Take each of the butterfly’s eyes and glue them to the middle of the head piece. Use your .25″ circle punch, scissors or markers to make or draw on a small nose underneath the two eyes.
Place the pink cheeks on either side of the mouth and glue in place. Like the nose, if you don’t have a circle punch or you want to save steps, you can have kids color in the cheeks too!
Make the butterfly’s striped body by gluing on the light orange stripes onto the yellow body piece. Once they’re glued on, cut off the excess paper with the scissors. If you need to simplify this craft you can always skip this step or let the kids use markers to decorate instead of adding the paper.
Glue the completed butterfly face onto the top flap of the brown paper bag.
Place the striped body on the bottom part of the paper bag and glue in place.
Make the butterfly’s wings by gluing the paper accents on the inside of the wings. You can get extra fancy and glue on rhinestones, sequins, glitter or stickers too!
Take the completed butterfly wings and glue them to the inside of the paper bag. You can also glue it to the back of the paper bag, but we think the inside looks better when you’re using it as a puppet.
Take your pipe cleaner and cut it in half. Wrap one end of each pipe cleaner around a marker to make the butterfly’s antennae.
Once you’ve made both antennae, flip the paper bag over and tape the antennae in place. If you don’t have tape or don’t want to use it, you can also use a glue stick. It’ll just take longer to dry and be ready for kids to use.
Now your kids have a colorful and fun butterfly that’s perfect for spring!
Make this easy kids’ craft for when you have a bug study unit or when learning all about butterflies!
If your kids enjoyed this craft, we’re betting they’ll also love this handprint butterfly craft.
Don’t forget to enter your email in the form at the end of this page to get your free printable template!
More Fun Insect Activities
Whenever we introduce a new theme or if we want to go deeper in it, we always start with children’s books! They’re an easy way to fill time and help kids learn to read or develop their vocabulary. Below are some of our favorite insect books for kids!
The Very Quiet Cricket– Everyone loves Eric Carle and this book is just as good as all his others! In it, a cricket is trying to discover how to make a sound, but when he rubs his legs together nothing happens. Follow him on his journey to find his very own sound! Kids love the ending where he and your child can hear the chirping!
Bugs A to Z is a great introductory insect book for kids. It’s great for kids to browse through and look at pictures and to find a short snippet about each bug.
Ten Little Ladybugs – This cute book is not only fun to read, but also fun to touch! Kids will want to read this book day after day and it helps them learn to count.
For more insect ideas try out some of our favorite including:
Share With Us
Did you make this craft with your kids or students? We’d love to feature them on our social media!
For a chance to have your child’s craft featured, simply snap a picture of the completed project and post it to our Facebook page, email it to us directly by clicking here, or use #simpleeverydaymom on your social media!
Get All Of Our Favorite Paper Bag Puppet Crafts
Paper Bag Butterfly Craft
Learn how easy it is to make this colorful paper bag butterfly craft for spring!
Materials
- Brown paper bag
- Colored card stock or construction paper
- White card stock
- Colorful pipe cleaners
- Glue stick
- Tape (optional)
- Markers (optional)
- Butterfly craft template (download form located at the end of this page)
Tools
- .25" circle punch (optional)
- Scissors
Instructions
- Download the butterfly template, print and cut out the pieces.
- Glue the eyes onto the face piece.
- Use the circle punch to punch out a nose and two cheeks. Glue them on the face piece.
- Take the stripes and glue them onto the butterfly's body. Use scissors to trim off the excess paper.
- Glue the completed butterfly face to the flap part of the brown paper bag.
- Glue the body to the long portion of the paper bag.
- Decorate the wings with the accent paper and any other embellishments you'd like.
- Glue the completed wings to the inside of the paper bag, on each side.
- Cut the pipe cleaner in half and wrap one end around it to make the butterfly's antennae. Repeat for the other side.
- Flip the paper bag over and tape the antenna to the top of the butterfly's head.
