During week four of Bees and Butterflies Mother Goose Time Theme, we learned about monarch butterflies. We have been learning about the life cycle of the butterfly and now we’re learning about specific butterflies. One of our art activities really became a focus on the Colors of a Monarch.
The Colors of a Monarch Activities
We learned that monarchs migrate many miles to warmer weather. For art, we made migrating butterflies. We looked at pictures of butterflies and talked about what symmetrical means. Using the attribute blocks, I made a design on one side of the butterfly and each child took a turn creating the same design on the other side of the butterfly.
Then taking the idea of symmetry to painting butterfly shapes, I showed them how they could paint one wing of the butterfly…
and then fold it in half…. to create the same pattern on the other side.
I guess this lesson stuck because one 4-year-old went home and pointed out a house. She said, “That house is symmetrical.” Excellent!
Usually, I allow each child to choose their own colors when we paint, but this time, we talked about the colors of a monarch. We painted with black, gold and two shades of orange paint.
Every butterfly had a slightly different color combination after mixing paint.
This girl said, “I’m going to try painting like this!”
The result of painting monarch butterflies:
After the butterflies dried, I taped them to a ribbon and tied it onto a craft stick. Then the butterflies could fly!
We had lots of leftover paint and the kids still wanted to paint so I gave them some blank paper. This is one of the beautiful paintings – a butterfly of course!
The colors of a monarch make attractive paintings!
This one is just fabulous, with the gold shimmer paint.
I was highly impressed with this boat painting as well. The 4-year-old painted it — vertically — the paper was turned sideways, to the left and he painted the boat that way. That seems challenging to me, to envision a boat horizontally in his mind and paint it vertically! Love it.
That afternoon, we spotted this lovely butterfly on a dandelion. It’s not a monarch but the colors are similar. The first butterfly and first dandelion of spring!
I hope our little lesson on the colors of a monarch inspires you to make some lovely paintings. We enjoy these books and toys in our room. The butterfly wings are used daily!