My husband and I gave my younger son this for Easter:
- Note: if you purchase this as a present, send away for the caterpillars 2 weeks prior to the gift giving event. (mom fail)
After waiting a few weeks for the caterpillars to arrive in the mail, they finally came!
And ever since, we’ve been on chrysalis watch.
In the meantime, we’ve been doing caterpillar crafts!
(This is really my way of keeping my boys from jostling the caterpillar jar about killing the poor things…but hey, it works as an attention diverter!)
So, I thought I should share them with you.
This first craft is all about recycled items from your house! Start with a cardboard egg carton.
Cut the top off, and cut the bottom in half length-wise. Each carton makes two caterpillars.
I pulled out my old paints, and let my boys go to Creative Town. If you have glitter or stickers, this is a good time to pull those out too!
We recycled some bread ties for antennas and wrote a smile on Mr. Pillar's face. Colorful and fun!
Next, we pulled out some left over pom-poms, a popsicle stick and some more bread ties.
Start by wrapping the stick with twist ties. These will be legs and feet for the caterpillar. Lay flat on table top.
You can glue on any color pom-pom in any pattern, but we chose to use the two colors and make a fun pattern! Glue the pom-poms until the stick is covered.
Once dry, bend the legs to elevate the caterpillar body and enjoy!
The third caterpillar is my personal favorite.
Not only did it cut down on my overflowing scrap paper bin, but it’s changed my boys’ behavior.
Yes, changed their behavior.
For this craft, you will need paper, a pipe cleaner and a pen. A circle punch is VERY useful here, but not mandatory.
We started by cutting out tons of circles – all the same size (again, VERY handy to have a circle cutter).
We started the caterpillar by “threading” the first circle through, and drew a smiley face on him.
Then, it was up to the boys (and their behavior) to add the body.
Everytime I “caught them being good or helpful,” they earned a circle.
They really responded well to the positive reinforcement!
But, you don’t need to do an incentive plan in order to have fun doing this craft.
When you're done, you have a fun looking caterpillar!
So, whether you choose to recycle, make patterns, or improve behaviors,
the whole point is to be creative and have fun!
Caterpillar buds.
