From Caterpillar to Butterfly

Look who's sporting a caterpillar clip!  These little guys have been popping up all over.  We continued on with the caterpillar theme by putting together a few caterpillar puzzles.  We have two Eric Carle puzzles and this little love bug one:

It was such a nice day we put them together outside.  It's amazing how "new" an old toy or game can become just by moving it to a new environment!
As we all know, caterpillars become beautiful butterflies so we painted some very colorful ones.  I was inspired by Jill's awesome craft.  I started out by folding some white paper in half and then reopening it.  Eva then squirted paint in various parts of the paper.  (She couldn't quite understand keeping the paint to one side of the fold but it worked out fine.)

Next we refolded the paper and pressed down on it to spread the paint around.

When we opened them, we discovered beautiful butterflies!  Eva could not get enough of this so we made several.  This is definitely a craft we will be doing again.

They are still drying (the Crayola finger paint we used was great for squirting and has very vibrant colors but takes a looooong time to dry) so you'll have to check back tomorrow to see how the finished products look.
Check out this book if you want to read more about the life cycle of butterflies.  The illustrations are gorgeous and the language is toddler-friendly.