How to Draw a Butterfly: 6 Kid-Friendly Steps

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Teach students how to draw a butterfly with an easy to teach, step-by-step lesson. Kindergarten and primary kids love directed drawings!

How to Draw a Butterfly: 6 Kid-Friendly Steps

This spring butterfly directed drawing creates a beautiful result and perfect for your spring lessons.

Materials for How to Draw a Butterfly

This directed drawing can be adapted for any primary classroom or completed at home with a few simple materials. You will need white art paper, pencils, erasers, fine black markers or Sharpie pens, and watercolor paints. I recommend proper paper meant for art because it can handle the water and paint and shouldn’t tear the paper if used properly.

When teaching this art lesson to a class I recommend standing front and center and using a large easel and chart paper to draw on. Students can sit at their desks with their supplies. I take things slow and draw each step and give each instruction one at a time. I give my students plenty of time to follow along and ask questions. You will have the most success if you model the lesson this way and take your time.

Directions for How to Draw a Butterfly

Below are all the steps for how to draw a butterfly.

Place a large white piece of art paper in landscape orientation. Starting in the middle of the page draw a small circle. Add an oval going down from the circle and another smaller oval from the bottom. This is the 3 parts of a butterflies’ body (head, thorax, and abdomen).

To draw large upper wings, start on one side first and then the other. Draw a curved wing shape starting below the head up, around, and then connect it at the bottom of the thorax (middle body). Repeat on the other side.

To create the smaller lower wings, start at the outer corner of the top wing and draw a curved wing shape down and back up connecting with the bottom of the abdomen (lower body). Repeat on the other side.

Now add the designs to the butterfly’s wings. You can let children to get creative here and give them some examples or they can follow the steps.

Start by drawing a curved line along the inside of each lower wing. Follow that with a scalloped line inside. Finish with a circle in the center of the leftover space.

For the upper wings, start again with a curved line inside of each upper wing. Follow that with a scalloped line inside that. Draw a curved line from each inner point of the scalloped line to the thorax (upper body). Repeat on both sides.

Draw 2 antennae from the center of the head going out in different directions. Draw a swirl or circle at the end.

Adding details to the face is optional and would not take away any beauty if left blank. To add the details for the eyes, draw two circles at the top of the head. Draw small curves at the top for eyelids. Add 3 small eyelashes. Draw and color in pupils, leaving a small spot of white in each eye. Add a small smile and a tiny heart-shaped nose, if you wish.

Use a fine point black marker or Sharpie pen to trace all the lines of your spring butterfly directed drawing. Erase the pencil lines with a good white eraser.

I usually complete the activity over two days or periods of time. On day one we complete the drawing and the tracing with a black marker. One day two we paint. If your class hasn’t used watercolour paints before, you should demonstrate how to make proper brush strokes with a paintbrush and the water to paint ratio. I usually use larger paintbrushes instead of the small ones that are normally included with watercolour paint sets.

Use watercolour paints to paint the body of the butterfly first, starting in the center and working your way outward. I used black for the entire body, being careful to not let it run anywhere or in the eyes.

Paint different parts of the butterfly’s wings in different bright colours (yellow, pink, green, blue, purple). Use one colour completely before moving on to the next colour.

You could continue to paint the background a different colour or leave it as is. The butterfly really pops when left against a white background. You could also cut the butterflies out and glue onto construction or other special paper.

Once everyone completes their spring butterfly directed drawing, they place them somewhere to dry completely. Don’t make the mistake to hang them or place them upright. Paint and water would drip down onto the butterflies. Once dry, I recommend hanging them up or creating a fun bulletin board display for spring.

You can download and print the instructions for how to draw a butterfly to use in your classroom during your art lesson HERE.

Directed Drawing Mats

Add directed drawings to your weekly lesson plans to help children follow directions and build drawing skills. There are 5 different directed drawings included each month of Drawing Mats!

Looking for more directed drawing resources?

The ultimate guide to teaching directed drawing in the classroom. Directed drawing art activities help kids produce masterpieces and build confidence. This guide provides a listing of directed drawing resources, suggested materials, and FREE step by step tutorials. Click HERE to check it out!

Do you LOVE directed drawings as much as I do? You must check out these popular posts with FREE directions for your next art lesson.

How to Draw an Easter Bunny

Turkey Drawing

How to Draw a Leprechaun

Word Work Sight Word Bundle

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Today I am introducing my Word Work Sight Word Bundle.

This bundle of word work printables will help your students learn their sight words by handwriting, stamping, drawing, and writing sentences with their sight words. Your students will learn to read and spell out each sight word with this activity.

There are 4 sets of differentiated worksheets (for Pre-Primer, Primer, 1st, and 2nd grade) and each word work sheet has 4-5 sight words on it for your students to practice and learn.

The Pre-Primer and Primer sheets have tracing, stamping, and fancy writing on each sheet.

The 1st grade sheets include a sentence to stamp.

The 2nd grade sheets include a spot to write a sentence with each sight word.

In this pack, you will get 38 pages of printable worksheets. It covers all the sight words from the Pre-Primer, Primer, First, and Second Grade sight word lists. It is differentiated all the way through and perfect for Kindergarten to 2nd grade.

Fill In’s & Fix-Its Bundle

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Have your students learn and practice their Dolch sight word lists in a fun and educational way. It’s the Fill- In’s & Fix-Its Dolch Sight Words Bundle.

Fill-ins and fix-its dolch sight word activities

This bundle of Fill-In’s and Fix-It printables will help your kiddos learn their sight words by reading and writing their sight words into sentences that make sense! They will also get some practice “fixing up” one or two sentences that have plenty of mistakes.

In this pack, you will get 38 pages of sentences to fill-in and fix with the Dolch sight words. It covers all the sight words from the Pre-Primer, Primer, First, and Second Grade sight word lists (4-5 words practiced on each sheet). It is differentiated all the way through and perfect for Kindergarten to 2nd grade.

Click HERE to download this sample FREEBIE for yourself before your purchase! Click the image below to head to my store to check it out!

I’d love to stay connected with you! Head over to join our Teacher Deals and Steals blog, like my Facebook page, pin me on Pinterest and check me out on Instagram!

Find & Color Sight Word Bundle

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Today I am super pumped to share with you a fun activity I use ALL THE TIME and I think you and your kiddos will LOVE it! It’s my Find & Color Dolch Sight Words Bundle.

I teach the Dolch sight words list in my class, along with a phonics list of words each week. Teaching sight words has greatly improved how quickly and fluently my students read. Dolch compiled the list of sight words based on those words that are most often used in children’s reading books. They are the words that “must be quickly recognized in order to achieve reading fluency.”

Find & Color Dolch Sight Word activities

This bundle of Find & Color printables will help your kiddos learn their sight words the FUN way by searching through the sheet to find their words and then coloring it the color indicated!

In this pack, you will get 38 pages of sight word finding and coloring fun for your students to practice the Dolch sight words. It covers all the sight words from the Pre-Primer, Primer, First, and Second Grade sight word lists (4-5 words practiced on each sheet). It is perfect for Kindergarten through 2nd grade.

Click HERE to download out this sample FREEBIE for yourself before your purchase! Click the image below to head to my store to check it out!

I’d love to stay connected with you! Head over to read my blog Proud to be Primary, like my Facebook page, pin me on Pinterest, and check me out on Instagram!

Learning Our Letters

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I’m excited to introduce my new products to you today… Learning Our Letters Part #1 and 2.Learning Our Letters Part #1 has over 200 pages full of alphabet/letter activities to teach children about identifying and forming the letters of the alphabet and learning what starts with each letter.

*ALPHABET PLAY-DOH MATS & PRINTING PRACTICE CARDS. Form each letter using Play-Doh and then practice printing the letters.

*ALPHABET DOT TO DOT PRACTICE. Practice forming upper and lower case letters correctly using dot markers or bingo dabbers.

*LETTER SEARCH & COUNT SHEETS. Search for all the upper and lower case letters. Then count how many letters have been found.

*REAL PHOTO ALPHABET POSTER SET. Hang bright and colorful alphabet posters that feature real life photograph to match each letter.

*FLASH CARDS. 8 flashcards are included for each letter. 4 pictures of things that start with that letter and 4 letter cards to help with printing and games.

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Learning Our Letters Part #2 has almost 200 pages full of alphabet/letter activities to build upon a child’s knowledge of the letters of the alphabet, learning what starts with each letter, and building their phonemic awareness.

Click HERE to visit the product page and take a look at the PREVIEW for instructions and examples of the activities and materials provided in this pack.

This is perfect for PreK, Kindergarten, and First Grade (as review) students learning their letters, but could also be used by parents of young children or for homeschooling of young children.

All the activities are provided for all 26 letters of the alphabet. The activities included are:

*ALPHABET CHART & DESK STRIP

*FIND, COLOR, & COUNT SHEETS. Students will find and color the pictures that begin with each letter and then count how many.

*LETTER CRAFTS. Pieces are included to create a craft for each letter. Color and cut out pictures that start with each letter and put them together on a paper strip.

*SPOT THE LETTER MATS. Your students will love these search and fin mats where they must find as many things that begin with each letter as possible.

*LETTER & PICTURE PUZZLES. Put together a puzzles for each letter of the alphabet. Includes both color and black and white options.

*NON-FICTION ALPHABET BOOK WITH REAL PHOTOGRAPHS. Assemble a mini book for each letter of the alphabet. These mini books include 4 real life photographs of things starting with each letter.

Today, I’m sharing a FREEBIE sampler from Parts #1 & 2 for your use.

I would love to hear from you! tell me what you teach and how you would use these products with your students or your children?

Rainbow Chevron Classroom Decor

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When I first started making products for TpT, I started off making decor packs for my classroom. I had some creative ideas about how I wanted things to look and thought that maybe someone else might want to brighten up their decor as well…and so came my rainbow chevron products.

I have many rainbow chevron products in my store, but I wanted to put together a bundle for buyers out there looking to decorate their entire classroom in style.

Introducing Rainbow Chevron MEGA Classroom Decor Bundle. It has 450 pages full of everything you need to decorate your classroom in this bright, colorful pattern. There are also EDITABLE files for you to customize your own labels, name tags, desk plates, binder covers, & more.

Check out some of the items in action in my own classroom and some of the extras included in this pack below.

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Here are my Rainbow Chevron Word Wall Headers from my kit (included in the BUNDLE). I love using a word wall in my classroom, but do not like how much room it takes up. For years, I’ve been searching for better ideas that do not mean me giving up an entire bulletin board.

Here is my lower wall word wall. Before this year, I didn’t have anything of importance on this lower wall…it was a bit of a waste of space. It is also right at our main carpet area, so finding a good purpose for it was important. I decided to give my word wall a new home.

First, I laminated large sheets of tag board in blue to suit my decor of purple, teal, and blue backgrounds. I cut the pieces to fit the lower wall and I taped it up. Next I laminated my word wall headers and taped those up along the top of the lower wall.

I love how it turned out and how functional it has been for my students and I to use. I add words every week after we learn them and my kiddos have an up close and personal relationship with it during poetry activities and word work. It’s at their level so it’s been a great use of space!
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Next up are my EDITABLE Rainbow Chevron Supply Labels (also included in the BUNDLE). I love to label things in my room. It makes it so much easier for students to find things when they are tucked in a shelf somewhere. I use labels for everything from school supplies, to art supplies, to math supplies. This labels can be used to label your classroom library book bins, your students cubbies, or your own teacher supplies! I love the rainbow chevron pattern as it’s colorful and looks cute on everything!

I have recently moved back to using binders instead of files to organize most of my materials and I love nothing more than a binder with a cute and colorful cover and spine. That is why I thought any classroom decor package must have coordinating binder covers and spine. I have included 42 covers with coordinating spines in all the colors of the rainbow! I have also included 8 covers and spines within the EDITABLE file for you to customize to suit your needs.

This is my teacher binder at home with some of the colorful covers available in the bundled pack only!

One of my essential classroom organization tools is my daily schedule and cards. I call it my “shape of the day” and kids love it too! Kids love knowing what they will be doing during the day and what is coming next. A visual schedule provides your students with a clear sense of what the day will bring so everyone can be better prepared!

I have included 52 schedule cards, plus 8 EDITABLE ones for you to customize. I love how these have turned out and can’t wait to get them up on my board for next school year!

If you love these schedule cards with scrappy kid graphics from Graphics from the Pond as much as I do, you will love the FREEBIE on my Facebook page. They go together perfectly!

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Included in this Rainbow Chevron Classrom Decor Bundle {450 pages + 2 EDITABLE files}

*2 Alphabet Poster Sets

*2 Number Poster Sets

*Color Posters

*Shape Posters

*Calendar, Weather & Birthday Sets

*Bulletin Board Letters

*NEW PACK OF EXTRAS including:
-welcome banner
-classroom signs
-clock labels
-binder covers & spines
-behavior chart
-60 schedule cards
-blank poster
-table sign

*2 EXTRA EDITABLE FILES with directions, including:
-binder covers
-banner
-desk plates
-name tags
-supply labels
-word wall cards
-posters
-schedule cards

My Rainbow Chevron Decor Bundle FREEBIE sample features my BRAND NEW Classroom Poster set with the adorable scrappy kids from Graphics from the Pond! Click HERE to visit my Facebook page during the Summer Stock to grab this FREEBIE for your own classroom!

{Example of one of the cute posters in the FREEBIE pack!}

Springing Into Science

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Happy Spring to everyone!

Today I am excited to share with you some of the activities from my Spring Surprises ELA & Science Bundle {frogs, butterflies, chickens & flowers} that we have been working on in my first grade classroom. I love teaching science and I think that bringing science lessons, experiments, and activities into the classroom is so engaging for kids!

This past week we have started 3 new focuses:

1.We have been learning about Spring and all the changes it brings, especially animals and living things.

2. We have begun to focus on non-fiction books, about reading non-fiction, the vocabulary, and text features.

3. We have been working on our reading comprehension, responding to text, and locating facts in text.

Therefore, I really wanted some interesting and informative activities that would tie in our science and ELA goals together…

Activity #1: Finding & Reading Facts about Frogs

First, we used the Frog Fact Sheets provided in my spring science pack to learn more about frogs. I started out by reading the fact sheets to my students so that we could have a discussion about frogs and learn some new vocabulary.

Next, I paired my students up and gave them their own copies to read together in partners to build their understanding and to hear the main facts about frogs again.

Then, they cut out all the frog facts from the cut & paste activity that goes along with the All About Frogs template. Before they were to paste the fact, they were encouraged to read each fact and locate it in the fact sheets, highlight it, and then glue down under the correct category.

This was great practice in not only reading comprehension and locating information in text, but in understanding non-fiction categories and headings, such as appearance, life cycle, habitat, diet, fun facts.

We worked really hard our this activity and my students learned TONS of new frog facts!

Activity #2: A Close Reading about a Butterflies’ Life Cycle

First, we used the Read & Respond activity about a butterflies’ life cycle provided in the bundle to learn more about butterflies. I started by reading the paragraph to my students and I showed them an anchor chart of the life cycle for them to have a visual.

Next, they worked with the same partner as the other activity (I like to do this because they are building new skills together with this person!) and they started by re-reading the paragraph on butterflies at their desks.

Then, they were to answer a page of questions related to the passage they read. I again encouraged them to locate the answers in the paragraph and highlight it. This also helps them when they are responding to narrow down the key information and have it easily accessible when answering the questions. We worked through the questions and I encouraged them to write their answers in complete sentences.

Overall, this activity was great practice for finding key information and for answering reading comprehension questions.

I would love to hear how you incorporate science into the curriculum?

Do you build reading skills with the use of non-fiction materials?

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If you are interested in seeing all the activities and materials provided in my Spring Surprises bundle you can read my blog post HERE or find it in my TpT store HERE. This bundle has everything you would need to teach about spring life sciences and is HUGE at almost 300 pages.

Also, I have the 4 spring science units included in the bundle {frogs, butterflies, chickens, flowers} available separately if you are interested.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have found some great science ideas for your own classroom!

Trade & Grade

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Hi everyone! Welcome to Trade & Grade facebook group Blog Hop! I’m super excited today to talk about Jayne Gammon from Smart Kid’s Super Smart Informational Writing Pack.

After looking through the pack, I knew that I would be able to use a lot of the writing options in my first grade classroom. First I needed to teach my students about informational writing. I made this anchor chart to introduce the lesson and have a discussion. We talked about writing to give the reader information, to learn something new and came up with some examples that children could connect to.

Then I prepared a brace chart of one of the templates included to write about “Our Playground,” one of the writing choices in this great pack. I left the chart blank and my students and I went through it together coming up with ideas and writing the information piece together. This particular chart is divided sequentially into first, second, third, which my students and I felt helped use organize our thinking. This pack has many different types of charts and writing frames so students can become familiar with and practice using different templates.

We have completed lots of writing before now and my students are able to write independently. We have done a few how-to writing pieces before so I felt confident these activities would be a nice follow-up activity. I decided to use the level 2 writing templates with my students. In Jayne’s pack there are three levels of writing templates to make it easy for you to differentiate for your students.

After we wrote the playground piece together, I decided to give my students a choice of 4 of the informational writing templates out of the 8 included. I choose the topics that I thought my students would connect to best (all of the writing topics included are topics kids can relate to!). We talked about how it is best to choose a topic that you can relate to and know enough information about. The choices given were how to make a pizza, my pet, directions to my house and introducing my teacher.

They quickly choose their topics, took their template back to their desks and got started. My students got to work so quickly and quietly that I knew they were engaged! They felt confident to write about their chosen topic independently because the templates are clear and easy to follow. My students loved that there was a place to draw and something to color to go along with their writing. This writing activity was a complete success and my students enjoyed the experience!

I highly recommend Smart Chart’s Smart Writing Informational pack. For each topic you will find a chart and leveled writing frames to make differentiation easy!

It comes with some cute notebook dividers that could also be used as booklet covers if you wanted to make a book with many of the writing frames. There are also “super writer” awards to give the students after they complete their writing!

Jayne has put together a great freebie for you all to have as a sample. Click the image below! Don’t forget to leave her some love if you use!!

If you love what you see, you must also check out Jayne’s other smart writing packs on narratives, opinions and persuasive. Click the link below to view her bundled pack!

Click her button below to visit her blog and read all about Jayne’s review of my pre-primer sight work pack!!

Poem of the Week Resources

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Today, I am introducing my favorite Poem of the Week resources.

Head HERE to see in detail how I use these resources in my classroom!

Each unit features 20 original poems written by me. For each poem, you receive 6 different activities to build reading fluency.

There are 6 activities for each poem depending on your grade level and skill level of your kiddies (differentiated for Pre-K to Grade 2). There are many activities to differentiate and meet all your students needs.

These large sized pack include:

*Poem of the Week or Month Banner (to hang above your poetry board or pocket chart)

*20 original poem sheets

*6 activities for each poem include:

-writing paper to copy the poem at a poetry center

-sentence strips of the poem to cut & paste onto a separate sheet

-fill in the blanks

-fill in the blanks + tasks with sight words, rhyming words, etc.

-lots of places to illustrate the meaning of the poems

-complete the sentences

Grab these 2 Poem of the Week resources for your class today!

If you are interested in these products, I suggest getting the Poem of the Week Bundle for a great value (4 packs for the price of 3).

Also available is my BEST SELLING Poetry Writing Pack HERE.

My Special Place Writing Lesson and Monet Waterlily Art

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“My Special Place” Writing

This week for writing we did a great “writing from our lives” lesson on our “special places”. First, I told the kids about a story of “my special place.” It was my childhood friend’s secret playroom in her closet. I described the place as well as I could so they would be able to visualize it (we are working on visualizing too at the moment).

Then I had the kids close their eyes and image a place that they think is special to them, like a place they have visited, their bedrooms or backyards, or maybe their Grandma’s house. I prompted them to think about this place in detail, by having them think about what is around them, what they liked doing there, what makes it special, and how it makes them feel.

Next, I told them to open their eyes and return to their desks where they would were to draw a detailed picture of their special place. Once everyone got started with their pictures, they were drawing so quietly I could tell they were very engaged in the lesson by how quiet it war! I stopped them after 10 minute of drawing to share with the person sitting next to them. I had them tell that person what their special place was and what they drew.

After that we worked on our beginnings. I asked for ideas and we decided that the first sentence should state what our special place is, something like “My special place is Disneyland.” Then we had to write the setting. Since we are learning about setting right now, I reminded them to write the time and place that they went to their special places. Something like “I went to Disneyland last year during my summer vacation.”

I started the next part of the lesson the next day at the carpet reviewing our previous day’s learning. I had them turn to their neighbors to share about their special places but this time to go into more depth and talk about all the things they do or did there, who were they with, and to use their five senses (see, hear, taste, feel, smell) to come up with details about their places. After the sharing, they returned to their desks to start writing. They wrote for over 30 minutes straight and included tons of great details on their own. Here is a picture of some of the completed writing pieces.

Have you ever used this as a writing topic?

How do you help those who have a hard time coming up with ideas without taking away their creativity?

Famous Artist -Monet

My student teacher, Christy, started her famous artists unit this week and the featured artist was Monet. She did a wonderful job introducing Monet by reading a children’s book about his life and showing pictures of his works of art (a few waterlily ones). The kids were so engaged and interested! She then showed them her art and described how they would be making their own water pictures with waterlilies using tissue paper and white glue.

The first step to the art project was to tear tissue paper (light blue, dark blue and pink) into long thin strips. Then
they were to use a paint brush to paint on white glue in strokes and
lay layers of tissue paper down, using all three colors, to create the
water and the look of light reflecting.

Next they added the lily pads and flowers on top of the water. It was so neat to see the class so quiet and focused and boy do I have some perfectionists!! They all did a great job and each one was so unique. The clean up was a BIG job but worth it when you see the end result!