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| www.bigbutterflycount.org |
Each spotting session takes just 15 minutes so hopefully just long enough to keep the attention of toddlers! We’ve seen all sorts of butterflies – lots of red admirals in and around Skipton this year! - out on our walks - so taking part in the count might be something fun to add to a stroll out with the children. We’ve seen them flitting past everywhere from more remote bridleways to Gawflat conservation meadow at Aireville Park, Skipton. For butterfly spotting charts as well as all the details about how to take part with your little ones visit www.bigbutterflycount.org
For the guaranteed flutter of butterflies all around you and a longer day out, we’re sure children of all ages would love a trip to Tropical World in Leeds (approx. 27 miles from Skipton). Under fives go £FREE and will no doubt be wowed by the butterflies, tropical birds, iguanas, snakes, spiders and other insects in the ‘rainforest’. In the nocturnal house there are also fruit bats, monkeys, bush babies and sugar gliders to marvel at. As well as meerkats, snakes and crocodiles!
If the sight of all these colourful butterflies inspires your little ones to get creative you could encourage them to capture what they see with butterfly hand print painting, symmetry pictures or making a butterfly out of a trusty toilet roll tube (no sticky back plastic required!)
Butterfly hand print painting
Start off by drawing and painting the butterfly body and a head as a starting point. Then paint or encourage your toddler to paint their hands (one at a time!) with lots of different colours – maybe a different colour per finger or a mix as the mood takes them, and get them to make two hand prints for wings on either side of the body. Once it’s dried you can then decorate it further with googly eyes and sequins or beads…anything that takes their fancy in fact!
Butterfly out of a toilet roll tube
Wrap a toilet roll tube in colourful paper or alternatively paint it all over. Either draw or stick on a pair of googly eyes to one end of the roll. Use either pipecleaners, bits of ribbon or paper to make the antennae and stick them inside the toilet roll tube so they poke out of the top. Then cut out a pair of wings shape and decorate them. Stick them to the back of the tube and voila!
Symmetrical butterfly pictures
Fold a piece of paper in half, paint two large blobs, one on top of the other, on one side of the fold, so that it looks like one half of a flying butterfly. The paint must be applied quite thickly so that it transfers successfully to the other half of the paper. Add some drips of contrasting paint on the blobs. Whilst the paint is still wet, carefully fold the paper along the fold and press down from the outside edge of the paper towards the fold. The image should now look like a butterfly! Once the painting has dried, they can use more paint and felt tip pens to add details such as antennae and a body.
If you love what they’ve done and want to share it, we’d love to see any of your little ones art-work. Just send it in to us and we’ll put it up on the MooBaa little stars section of our community pages. You never know, your talented little ones might just produce something to rival a childhood favourite of MooBaaKids – the fabulous The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Since it was published in 1969, the story of the caterpillar who munches his way through the story to become a beautiful butterfly has entranced millions of children. It’s been enjoying something of a cult revival recently but we’ve checked online and there are currently 11 copies in at Skipton library at the time of writing…we’ll race you! x
