Macaroni Metamorphosis Craft

Use your noodle to teach your kid about the butterfly life cycle.

Submitted by
Laura

Have your kid explore the metamorphosis of the butterfly, from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to beautiful butterfly, with this craft. Make a model of each stage out of pasta, twigs and paper. He'll not only learn something about the lifecycle of the papilionoidea (that's geek speak for butterfly), but next time you go out to an Italian restaurant, he'll even know what orzo is!

Li'l Lepidopterologist:
Your kid. In case you're a little rusty on your butterfly trivia, a lepidopterologist is someone who practicies lepidopterology and studies lepidoptera, or butterflies and moths.
One piece of rotini:
Tight corkscrew pasta.
One piece of farfalle:
Bowtie pasta.
A few pieces of orzo:
Tiny rice-shaped pasta.
One piece of conchiglie:
Small shell-shaped pasta. And that's it for your Italian lesson del giorno!
One piece of rectangular cardboard:
The back of a cereal box will work nicely.
Construction paper:
One piece of green and a few pieces of any other color to serve as a background color.
Tape
Glue
Scissors
Small twigs
Seed beads:
Two, for caterpillar eyes.
Tempera paint and a paintbrush:
Green, red or yellow paint. Whatever color your kid wants to make her caterpillar.
A cotton ball
A marker

Cut the back off of an empty cereal box.
Then help your kid cover it with construction paper to make a nice, even colored background.
Next, draw a "plus sign" with the marker to divide the cardboard into four equal sections.
Starting in the upper left hand corner and moving clockwise, help your kid label each section with the lifecycle stage: 1) egg, 2) caterpillar/larva, 3) chrysalis/pupa and 4) adult butterfly.
Then set your kid to work creating the "habitat." Have him cut four leaves out of construction paper and gather four small twigs. Invite him to glue a leaf hanging from a twig onto the upper right hand corner of each square.
Next, have your kid glue a handful of orzo onto the leaf in the first (or "egg") section of the lifecycle to represent the butterfly eggs.
Then encourage him move on to the "larvae stage." The rotini will be his caterpillar.
Invite him to decorate his caterpillar by painting it and gluing on seed beads for eyes. He can even tease out a thin layer of cotton from a cotton ball, dip it into the paint and stick it on the pasta to give the caterpillar that authentic fuzziness.
Help him glue the caterpillar onto the second (or "caterpillar") section.
Moving on, have your little lepidopterologist glue a piece of shell pasta under the twig in the third square to represent the chrysalis or pupa hanging from a branch.
Finally, have your kid paint a piece of farfallle like butterfly wings and glue it to the fourth square to complete the lifecycle.
When he's finished the project, walk your kid through all of the stages of the metamorphosis. For each section, explain what happens and how the butterfly changes. Need a cheat sheet? Check out the Children's Butterfly Site.