Butterfly, Where Are You, Butterfly?

As I wrote the title to this post, I had to smile, remembering when Joshua was a baby and just barely able to talk, and he'd look around for the butterfly piece to his puzzle and say "butterfly, where are you, butterfly?" Shawn & I would crack up every time. His voice was so sweet and so cute! :)

We had a similar experience the week of Spring Break in our house. I started by talking to them about caterpillars and butterflies. I didn't realize until I read a friend's post that the caterpillar actually dies in the cocoon it creates. It eats itself to death, then hangs upside down in the shape of a J (for Jesus, dying to itself!) and is transformed into a beautiful new creation, a fantastic butterfly! How its story has spoken to me recently! I love that God can transform something ugly into something of beauty. :) We enjoyed talking about caterpillars and butterflies. The boys love to see both. Some day, I'd love to try to the experiment with a real caterpillar and butterfly, but I don't know anyone who grows milkweed.

For now, though, we took out Joshua's craft book from his preschool aide, Mrs. Perez. For Valentine's Day, she gave us a couple new crafts to put in including this caterpillar one that looked fairly simple. I started collecting caps from our water bottles and had WAY too many. But, I was glad to have more than enough rather than too few.

We started by cutting a leaf shape out of the green construction paper. Joshua did a GREAT job with cutting, and Caleb did better than usual. I still helped him position it on occasion, but he is starting to get the hang of how to hold the scissors.

Then, we used crayons to color on the bottle caps. I didn't realize crayons would do such a great job on them. The boys enjoyed picking out their colors for each one. :)

Then I put a pile of glue on another piece of used construction paper we still had. This is the only step I would have done differently - it was a pink piece and the pink came off on the glue. So, next time I'd use a white piece of paper or a cardboard lid or something that wouldn't soak up the color. But, it didn't really matter. The kids dipped each of their bottle caps in the glue and then onto their leaf.

Then we took a pipe cleaner, folded it into the shape of a "V" and glued it on for the antennae. This could have been drawn on, though, in my opinion. We also glued on googly eyes that we had laying around from Christmas crafts. You can get a whole bag of them for a buck or two.

Last, we drew the legs on with a marker. The boys each signed their name to theirs.

 

And since they didn't need much help and I had a ton of bottle caps, I created my own as well.

Here are all three together:

 

The best, though, was at the end of the craft. Both boys asked as they quickly tossed them aside "When will these turn into butterflies?" I was aghast. I tried to explain that these were crafts and not real butterflies, but they insisted that they should transform. I had to laugh then. What else could I say?

There is a wonderful book by Max Lucado about a caterpillar not feeling special and wanting what everyone else had, but how God kept telling him to be patient, that He was the one who would make him special and not other things. I loved it. Joshua brought home another book from preschool after our craft that was the "Munching, Crunching Caterpillar" who longed to fly like the birds of the air and eventually did after his nap. The boys loved it. Me, too. Thank You, God, for the butterflies and Your reminder to us that You've made us something special too, particularly when we die to ourselves.