Paper Plate Butterfly Craft For Kids [Free Template]

Let’s get ready to flutter our wings! Spring is in the air, and with it comes beautiful weather, blooming flowers, and fluttering butterflies. There’s so much fun to be had at this time of year, and it’s the perfect opportunity to celebrate the beauty of nature.

Bring the outdoors in with this sweet paper plate butterfly craft. Kids will have so much fun creating their own beautiful butterflies with this easy-to-follow craft.

For some more fun and fluttery crafts, check out all our butterfly crafts for kids! Kids will have a blast working on these crafts and will want to decorate their homes with their special creations.

Butterfly Paper Plate Craft

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Kids can practice their fine motor skills, use their imaginations, and learn about symmetry while they design their butterflies. Crafting a paper plate butterfly is a great way to have fun and learn at the same time. This craft is great for kids of all ages and can easily be simplified for little ones.

Our downloadable template and step-by-step instructions make setting up this craft simple. Your kids will be flying high with their butterfly creations in no time!

Supplies

• Paper plates
• Paint in bright colors
• White card stock
• Colored pipe cleaners
• Googly eyes
• Markers
• Scissors
• Paintbrush
• Glue stick
• Tape
• Stickers/embellishments (optional)
• Butterfly craft template (download form located at the end of this page)

Directions

Download our free printable butterfly template, print on white cardstock, and cut out the pieces.

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Paint one paper plate in the color you want the wings to be. Paint the other paper plate yellow, for the butterfly’s body. Let dry completely before going on to the next step.

Place the butterfly wing template pieces on the wing paper plate, trace, and cut them out. Place the butterfly body template on the yellow paper plate, trace it, and cut it out.

Put the butterfly wings next to each other so they are almost touching. Put glue along the back of the butterfly’s body and glue the body on top of each of the wings.

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Push the adhesive googly eyes onto the head portion of the butterfly’s body.

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Use a pink marker to draw on two little cheeks underneath the eyes. Use the black marker to draw on a smile between the cheeks.

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Use the markers to draw details along the body. We used orange to make thick stripes on the body. You can do whatever you want including spots, thin stripes or anything else you can think of!

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Decorate the wing details with the markers. Add any other embellishments you want on the wings. We used adhesive sequins in similar colors. You can also use stickers for this.

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Take your pipe cleaner and cut it in half. Wrap a bit of one end around a marker. Unloop it and make it loosely curled in. Repeat for both antennae.

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Flip the butterfly over and place the antennae on the back. Use a small strip of tape to secure them to the back. You can also use glue dots, liquid glue, or a glue stick, but we think tape is the easiest way!

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That’s all there is to it! It’s a simple butterfly craft kids will love making this spring!

The great thing about this craft is it’s 100% customizable. If you make this butterfly craft in a group, like at school or the library, we guarantee every child will have their own unique butterfly at the end.

Ways To Simplify This Craft

We’re always looking for ways to adapt our crafts to even the youngest of little ones. We think it’s super important for moms to craft with all the kids!

To simplify this craft, we have a few ideas.

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First, if you’re low on time or don’t want a mess, skip the painting. Instead buy cheap colored paper plates from the dollar store. We’d suggest going with bright spring colors like yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink!

Second, skip the embellishments. Little hands may get frustrated trying to put small stickers all over their butterfly. Instead, let them make their decorations just with markers.

Related: Insect Sensory Bin

Finally, skip the antennae or make them for your child. This is probably the trickiest part and toddlers and preschool children will need help from an adult to curl them. If you don’t want to skip this part, simply have pre-cut, straight pieces for the kids to tape on.

We’re sure that if you end up making these butterflies, the kids will love them!

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More Insect Fun For Kids

The springtime fun doesn’t have to stop here! We have a bunch more insect crafts that your kids will love. Keep reading and discover some fun new projects to try this spring.

You and your kids will have so much fun crafting and learning about the small creatures we share our wonderful world with!

Insect Books For Kids

Whenever we introduce a new theme or if we want to go deeper into 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.

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Kids’ Insect Crafts

Crafting is a great way to keep kids engaged and learning. You can spend quality time with your little ones while they work on their fine motor skills. Cutting with scissors, coloring, and using glue all help to build hand-eye coordination.

Insect crafts are especially fun since there are so many opportunities for creativity! Kids will love working on these colorful crafts, and they won’t even realize they’re learning something. Have some fun with your little ones today with our favorite insect crafts below.

Handprint Ladybug Craft – Have your little bugs use their hands to create a fun and unique ladybug. With our easy-to-use downloadable template, your kids can make as many handprint ladybugs as they want.

Why not decorate your home or classroom for spring with a family of cute handprint ladybugs?

Bee Name Craft – Does your kiddo have a buzz-worthy name? Then this craft is perfect for them! Have your child create their own bee name tag with this fun and easy craft.

This activity will work their fine motor skills, letter recognition, and creative thinking. Your kid will buzz with excitement when they show off their new creation!

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Butterfly Shape Craft – This butterfly shape craft is all about getting creative! Let kids get hands-on with this project and make some colorful creations together.

They’ll have a blast mixing and matching colors, shapes, and patterns. Before you know it, your walls will be fluttering with these sweet butterflies.

Bee Paper Bag Puppet Craft – Send your kids on a bee-tastic adventure with this fun paper bag puppet craft. Paper bag puppets are perfect for teaching kids about roles, improvisation, and storytelling. Our bee paper bag puppet craft will surely give your kids a creative buzz!

Kids’ Insect Activities

These printable preschool bug activities help with scissor skills, handwriting, patterns, and more! They can be used as a standalone activity or as part of a larger unit on insects. Either way, your kids are sure to enjoy them!

These bug color by numbers feature different bugs, each with its own coloring page. Kids can use crayons or markers to color in the bugs according to the key.

As they color, they will start to see the bugs take shape. This is a great activity for kids of all ages, and it’s a great way to have them practice color and number recognition.

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Do your kids love playing with bugs? Now they can have even more fun with this bug play dough kit! This activity encourages imaginative play and is perfect for kids of all ages.

The kit comes with 2 different colors of play dough and lots of creepy crawlies! So let your kids loose to create their very own bug world!

Using our senses to explore and learn is so much fun! This insect sensory bin is a great way to keep kids engaged and learning in a tactile environment.

They’ll have the best time exploring and discovering all the different shapes, colors, and textures of the items in the bin. Spaghetti, rocks, and toy bugs can all be used to create a creepy-crawly adventure for your kids.

Share With Us

Did you make this activity with your kids or students? We’d love to feature them on our social media!

For a chance to have your child’s project 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!

More Fun Ideas For Kids

Free Butterfly Template