Getting Buggy With It

We've been doing some bug arts and crafts this week, to celebrate the creepy crawly side of the season! First, we made a caterpillar. I chose to do a caterpillar craft with Jonah, because he has been really interested in the woolybears in our yard. The woolybear is kind of a big deal in our area this time of year, and one of my favorite fall activities is looking for these cute little critters. I let Jonah choose what colors to make his caterpillar, though, I didn't want to restrict him to brown and black.

I cut the body of the caterpillar from a paper egg carton. I gave Jonah two choices for painting the caterpillar. He could use a shower puff, or an old bottle brush. He tried the shower puff, but did not really like the way it felt, so he ultimately chose the bottle brush. We also used pom-poms, pipe cleaners (cut into 4ths) and elmer's glue

First, I let Jonah paint the body of the caterpillar. He is beginning to tell me which colors that he wants to paint with, and he really favors purple and blue! 

We let the paint dry, then Jonah glued the pom-poms onto the caterpillar. I thought it was cute how he chose to put one on each "peak" of the egg carton.

Then I added the pipe cleaners for legs and antennae. An older child can probably do this on their own. I used scissors to poke holes in the body, but an older child can use a scrapbooking tool for safety. Then I bent the pipe cleaners inside of the egg carton, so they stayed in the holes, and shaped them to be legs and antennae.

We also made handprint spiders in spider webs. Stay tuned for that craft!