Bananapillars: Fun and Free Butterfly Life Cycle Activities

Last school year, we covered various life cycles right near the end of the year. Since summer was right around the corner I absolutely had to ensure that my lessons were extra engaging.

I chose the butterfly life cycle for the extra activities.

We made the ever-so-popular life cycle models using pasta. This was a big hit with my 4th graders!

I’ve made this template into a free printable for you to use with your class. There are two life cycles included. One has four stages and one has five stages of change. You could also have students draw in the printables and write about each stage. There is a circle template and a rectangular version.

After we finished the above activity, I decided to continue the fun and have the kids make “bananapillars”.

The kids totally ate this activity up (pun intended, haha!).

I gave the students all of the materials:

banana
2 raisins
a few pretzel sticks

I told them that we were going to make a model of one particular stage of the butterfly’s life cycle. They figured out that it had to be a caterpillar because of the shape of the banana.

Then, they told me how it should be constructed (and they were right). This was a big hit!

How to make the bananapillars

Cut the banana into several slices
Gently press the raisins into the head segment to create eyes
Break pretzel sticks in half to create legs and antennae

I’ve got tips on how to pull this all together plus a free printable song to go along with the fun butterfly life cycle activities. Even my fourth graders loved it.

Come on over to read MORE about the lesson and to snag the freebies…

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– Originally posted on Teaching Blog Addict