This Summer my church, Mineola F.U.M.C. of Texas, decided to do a
"New Life" V.B.S. "
theme using caterpillars and butterflies as symbols to teach kids about spiritual transformation.
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17,
"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!"
What better way than Metamorphosis of a caterpillar to show the changing of an ordinary squirmy green worm
into a marvelous miraculous butterfly?!
This idea and verse are very close to my heart and is the core meaning of The Lost Sock Legacy!
You can read all about the Lost Sock here...
This is the book, The Lost Sock that I wrote to teach kids about
Spiritual Transformation.
Here are 2 of my favorite pages from the book...
(click on image to enlarge details)
Our children's director, Gayle Fuller, is an amazingly multi-faceted lady that has brought "new life" to our once struggling children's ministry! She researched the theme and crafts that I am now directing. My job is to make tangible examples of each craft (with the help of my amazing hubby) for the group leaders to use for clearer understanding of creative task.
These first three crafts will be done with the 4th and 5th graders only.
The first is a beautiful transparent butterfly made from a large milk jug and permanent markers.
This picture (below) is the finished product of the
TRANSPARENT RAINBOW BUTTERFLY!
Here is how to get it ....
SUPPLY LIST
gallon plastic milk jug, array of colorful permanent markers, larger chisel tip black permanent market, tough scissors, 1 chenille pipe cleaner, 5 medium size beads plastic with larger hole, symmetrical black and white butterfly pattern printed horizontally on white card stock,and 2 jumbo paper clips.
The first step is to print out a black and white symmetrical butterfly design onto card stock paper and cut out around outside. Place the center of the butterfly onto the corner of the jug (as seen above).
Trace around stencil with permanent black marker.
Begin cutting straight down from mouth to the center of bug. Cutting is easy until a curve comes. I learned that when approaching the curve, continue going straight a few inches and this allows room for your turn around to make curve.
Lay positive pattern onto butterfly design sheet. Paper lip sides to keep in place.
Begin coloring with markers in spots that are white on pattern. If you want to blend colors, it is best to begin with dark then join lighter color slightly overlapping. Remember to keep color design as symmetrical as possible.
This is the color part completed...
Next, begin tracing the black spots from pattern beneath.
Next, fill in solid with black chisel-tip permanent market.
Big Help: Paper clip on right and left of plastic to pattern to keep from moving during tracing during tracing process.
Next, you will need a chenille pipe cleaner and 5 plastic beads.
Fold pipe cleaner in half and lower on 4 beads to one side, saving 1 bead for later step.
Lower mid- section of butterfly into center of half folded pipe cleaner with beads
on colored top-side of wings.
Next, use remaining 5th bead to lower on both ends of pipe cleaner to secure head/antennas.
Lower bead down all the way to meet other 4 beads and spiral bend antennas facing outward.
The colors of marker, pipe cleaner, and beads can be altered creatively to your preference. have fun!
LOST SOCK NEW CREATURE
Above, I have my own version of a Lost Sock butterfly that coincides with my book.
But, to do this sock doll with children is extremely difficult and time consuming!
So, I will share with you a simpler version below for kids to make in shorter time.
Here is the Children's Version below...
SUPPLY LIST
green medium to long sock
or
alternative medium to long green or light colored sock with green dye,
green yarn, bag of stuffing, fabric scissors, 2 large google eyes, craft glue, chenille pipe cleaner,
8 by 10 piece of felt (lighter colors are best), 3 small safety pins, colored permanent markers.
If you have a green sock at your convenience, that is best. But, a light colored sock dyed green will work just as well. Follow instructions on your dye box for best results. I only needed 1 sock, so I decided to dye my light beige argyle sock in my own way using my coffee maker and recycled creamer bottle. These come in handy at our house in multiple ways. See here if interested...
Fill shakable lidded vessel with hot water, wet light colored sock, and appropriate amount of green dye. Shake every 5 minutes for one minute intervals. Repeat for 30 minutes.
To keep from getting to messy, I wrapped an already green dishcloth around the lid for any accidental splashing or spilling during the shaking process. It helped a lot!
Empty out green water and rinse and shake several times each time renewing water till it empties clear.
Add cold water and soap to shaker, close, shake to clean, renew water for rinse shake, and remove sock from shaker.
Hang dry sock till dry...
After the sock is ready, you will need the stuffing supplies to transform your ordinary old sock into a caterpillar, and soon a marvelous butterfly.
After I went through all the hard work dying my husband's old sock, I realized it had a whole! UGGH! If yours does not have a hole, you will not need to do this step... but this project does seem more meaningful using a sock that was previously seen as useless trash and will soon be given a new purpose!
To hide the hole in the toe, I first turned the sock inside-out. THen, I used green string to tightly tie a hard knot at least an inch below the hole . After, I turned the sock back to right side out.
At this point, you use fiber filling to stuff the sock. Make sure to pull apart the stuffing and fluff it up by separating the condensed filling before stuffing.
It always ends up better if you stuff with smaller pieces slowly.
Then, using 12 inch long pieces of green yarn (or rubber bands can be optional), tightly tie yarn around starting at the toe end of sock in a double knot. I then brought the ends back around to the other side of sock and tied them again in a tight double knot and then stuffed the loose ends into the yard that was tied around. This creates the segmented look of the caterpillar.
Continue making segments with yarn until you reach the ankle/leg end of the sock.
When I got to the open end of the sock, I used a green pipe cleaner the same way I did they yard. I tightly twisted it around the end leaving about 2 inches of the ribbed calf hole open.
The ends of the pipe cleaner I pushed up into the extra ribbed calf that was left at the top. You do not have to to this, but I did not want my sock to look like a balloon with the blow tag sticking out.
CHALLENGE DISCOVERED: If the sock is super elastic at this end, it tends to be more challenging. You may need to assist your kids in getting the ends pushed through to the inside of the open end.
After the pipe cleaners were pushed through the extra end, I then reverse folded the extra end over to look like a beanie cap. I did also apply glue along the inside of the cap to make sure it stayed down.
Now, this caterpillar is ready for transformation! Use the 8 by 11 felt and fold in half. In the picture below, the fold is on the right. The fold is the center of the wings and in this case the line of symmetry. With a permanant marker (preferable a color close to the felt but slightly darker), draw half of a wing design trying to use up as much space as possible. I took the far tips of my wings all the way to the corners of my felt.
Using fabric scissors, cut the folded felt along the wing line design.
Make sure you DO NOT CUT ALONG THE LINE OF SYMMETRY.
Open felt wings and being using other permanent marker colors to make designs on the wings.Try to encourage the kids to keep their designs symmetrical. I noticed it does not work so well filling in with color, but line designs worked just fine. Sometimes the felt has a spiderweb effect and begins webbing off onto the marker when you try to fill in areas with color.
Then use three small safety pins to pin the wings onto the back of the caterpillar. Make sure the design is facing down when pinning on to back.
Bend the antennas to look just right for you bug. Final step is gluing on the googly eyes. Now your miraculous creation can see life through new eyes. What once was a LOST, has FOUND a new purpose!
BEADED BUTTERFLY
SUPPLY LIST
100+plastic beads with big hole, 3 chenille pipe cleaners, craft glue.
You will need about 10 beads and a pipe cleaner to start the core.
Begin my folding one of the pipe cleaners in half for the body and antenna.
Lower one bead onto one end and lower down to the fold.
Next, lower the remaining 9 beads onto the pipe cleaner going through both ends simultaneously.
Push beads all the way down to the original bead on fold.
You will now need three more pipe cleaners for the wings.
The top two need their own while the bottom two use one combined since they are smaller.
Begin on the top wings by putting a small amount of craft glue onto one tip end of each pipe cleaner.
Lower both ends into the top bead where the antennas protrude.
You only need to lower/push them in about 1/2 inch into top two beads for stability.
Begin symmetrically beading each wing. I had to use 32 on each wing.
Just go until you lave about 1/2 or more inches on the end of each pipe cleaner to attach it to the body.
Take the remaining 1/2 inch of the pipe cleaners and add glue to secure insertion,
Find a middle bead on the body of the butterfly to push the pipe cleaner ends upward into the beads in body.
Next, Fold the last pipe cleaner in half and shimmy it
in between two beads directly below the insertion point of the top wings. Exchange the right and left pulling so that is makes a twist on the mid body of the butterfly.
Bead the rest of the pipe cleaner. I used half the amount that I used above, about 15 on each wing.
When 1/2 inch is remaining, push both ends through the bottom bead and secure by
bending wire around itself.
This is the end result!
I used clear beads because it is what I had around my house hand.
It would be beautiful with rainbow order colors as well.
The key is to stay symmetrical if possible.
If you are trying to save time, one color option is best to keep kids from planning out patterns that are too complicated. But if time is not an issue, patterns would be very educational and fun.
FAN FOLD BUTTERFLY
This project is the only one in our craft block that will be done with 1-5th graders as a whole.
You may alter the lesson according to the grade level following suggestion in instructions.
SUPPLY LIST
2 square pieces of colored paper
(any thickness will work, lighter colors work better if you want to draw designs on them),
1 pipe cleaner, crayons or markers optional.
You can use pre-decorated paper like printed scrap booking paper, decorate your own, or just use plain paper. I chose to use crayons to decorate my paper. If you are doing this with the 1-3rd graders, you may want designed or plain paper since the folds will be more difficult for them and thus use up more time. But, for the older 4-5th graders, they are probably advanced enough to have extra time to decorate before the folding. It is up to you.
If you started with a paper that was already square, you will need to fold it in half diagonally
to get a center guide line for the fan fold.
Keep the paper folded on the diagonal line and begin fan-folding from this line
up to the top corner of the wing.
After first half of first wing is completed, turn paper over and begin folding on the other side of the paper to get the same fan fold.
When done, repeat these steps with the second piece of paper.
Have the pipe cleaner folded in the center and hand for this next step.
Take each piece of folded paper and pinch the center points of the fan fold together and hold in place tightly,
Join both fans together by holding them tighly in place in the middle.
Use the half folded pipe cleaner to twist around the middle section tightly.
Then bend the ends of the pipe cleaner outward to represent the antennas.
You are done!
These next few projects are designed for the 1st - 3rd graders.
They are more simple in steps and take less time. You may want to have coloring sheets on hand that relate to the theme for early finishers. I will attach one at the bottom of this page that is from the book that can be printed out and colored by little creative hands.
LOLLIPOP BUTTERFLY
SUPPLY LIST
Large Lollipop (tootsie roll or blow pops work best), Pair of Small Google Eyes, Colored Card Stock (lighter colors work best), washable markers, bottled glue.
To make this sweet butterfly, you will need half a sheet of colored card stock (approximately 8.5 by 5.5) in lighter colors folded in half "hamburger" style. Using a pencil, lightly trace the 1/2 of a butterfly wing onto the paper with the center on the fold line (line of symmetry). Cut along pencil line only leaving the fold uncut. Then along the fold, snip 2 slit lines for the lollipop stick to later rest in. Now, open up wings. When you open up the folded wings they should remain in one piece. Then students can decorate the wings with markers in a symmetrical design. Then, put lollipop stick into the 2 slits cut on the fold line. Lastly, glue googly eyes onto wrapper of candy.
FUZZY CATERPILLAR CLIP
This project will be done with the 1-3rd graders only
5-8 small to medium Colorful Pom Poms, small to medium googly eyes, bottled glue, green stiff felt (or green foam paper, or green card stock), leaf pattern, clothespin clip, green pipe cleaner
Begin by tracing leaf (or freehand draw) onto a piece of green card stock paper (or alternative). Cut out leaf from paper. You can use a dark green or back washable marker to draw lines/veins on if desired. Begin glueing a trail of pom poms on the leaf, each one touching each other. On the last pom pom glue 2 googly eyes with bottle glue. Hold them in place individually for 30 seconds of more. Antennas can be cut from green scraps of leaf paper and glued on. Or you can use a 2 inch piece of green pipe cleaner folded in half to glue in between head and first segment of caterpillar.
Lastly, glue clothes pin onto bottom of leaf to pin this hungry caterpillar on a tree or plant.
COFFEE FILTER BUTTERFLY
This project will be done with the 1-3 rd graders only.
SUPPLY LIST
coffee filter, spray bottle with mist filled with water, a variety of colors in washable markers, pipe cleaner, clothes pin, sheet of wax paper (a little larger than the coffee filter),
OPTIONAL SUPPLIES
blow dryer (optional time saver),
rhinestones, pom poms
Use the washable markers to color a design onto the filter.
HINTs:
*The more color you add, darker you go, and more overlapping of like colors you make gives the most brilliant and colorful results.
*If you are too random with your color overlapping and blending your results will appear muddy and dull.
Try to blend and overlap colors that are next to each other on the rainbow.
Place coffee filter on wax paper.
Mist stray the filter with water till you see the colors begin to bleed together.
You can let the coffee filter dry in between activities or use a blow dryer if time is limited.
Prepare the clothes pin by threading a pipe cleaner through the wire spring, twist to secure and bend ends into spiral antennas.
Crinkle the center of the dry coffee filter and pinch.
Use the clothes pin to as the body of the butterfly in between the wings.
A happy face can be drawn on your clothes pin, googly eyes can be glued on, clothes pin can be colored green, or whatever you prefer. You can let the kids be creative and choose what they want to do.
This is an extra optional step that can be done if desired. I added rhinestones along the front of my wooden clothes pin to make it a little more special.
If student's are early finishers, have these color sheets on hand to pass them out! They will help ingrain the theme and give them something creative to do while others finish up their craft.
COLORING SHEETS
created by Tabitha Seaton of Lost Sock Creations
