Butterfly Themed Montessori Shelves, Round 1 (28 months old)
Who’s got two thumbs and loves butterflies? Little Guy, that’s who. He has an intense love for the natural world, which fills my indoorsy heart and has inspired me to spend more time outdoors. This unit is my attempt to support his love of butterflies by helping him acquire more knowledge and develop his schema around butterflies and lifecycles. As homeschoolers, we have the unique opportunity to create a preschool curriculum that will help our little ones develop schemas that will support their learning throughout elementary, middle, and high school regardless of what academic setting they end up in. By following the child, we can foster a love of learning as we support their interests.
The first time we explored this unit, Little Guy was 18 months old. He absolutely loved the books, counting and color activities, and watching his butterfly garden grow. Now that he’s 28 months old, I’ve incorporated a more complex puzzle and a set of lifecycle figurines that he definitely would have tried to eat last summer.
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Books
National Geographic Kids Look and Learn: Caterpillar to Butterfly (Look & Learn)
Butterflies and Moths (Smithsonian Kids First Discovery Books)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - This is certainly not Montessori aligned, but it is a children’s classic and Little Guy absolutely loves it.
Butterfly life cycle
Teaching toddlers about life cycles connects them to the natural world and helps them develop an understanding of how nature works. The concept of a butterfly’s lifecycle is too complex for toddlers and children to grasp by simply manipulating figurines, so I strongly recommend supporting this Montessori work with at least one of the butterfly life cycle books above. Integrating books and manipulatives will give your toddler multimodal input and support their ability to develop a schema for lifecycles.
Butterfly Life Cycle figurines - WARNING - some pieces of this set are choking hazards. Please do not leave mouthing babies or toddlers unsupervised with this activity.
For older toddlers and young children, this Butterfly Life Cycle puzzle may be more engaging than the figurines!
Sensorial - Fine Motor
Little Guy absolutely loves this butterfly felt puzzle that I found on Etsy. I love that it comes with a control card, it’s thick enough for tiny fingers to pick up easily, and it seems sturdy enough to hold up well even if Little Guy decides to chew on it. He stopped putting everything in his mouth at about 15 months, but every now and then there’s something that’s just too tempting!
Butterfly stickers are another way that we’re working on fine motor development in this unit. Are stickers Montessori aligned? No, probably not. However, they are beautiful, fun, and Little Guy loves stickers. Peeling the backs off of the stickers or peeling them from their sheets without tearing them is a great way for him to practice very fine motor skills and gain a bit more control. For this activity, I just added some stickers to his art tray so that he can bring it to his table whenever he wants. Thankfully he doesn’t draw or put stickers on the walls, so I feel comfortable leaving this out for him to access without direct supervision.
Sensorial - Counting and Colors
This DIY can be used for multiple different activities!
It’s always a good time to work on colors and numeracy, so I try to include materials related to those in every unit. To support this, present the Butterfly Colors and Counting book with this DIY butterfly counting and colors activity (DIY tutorial coming soon!). Little Guy loves matching manipulatives with images in his books. I definitely recommend printing out the self correcting counting cards from the DIY Felt Flower Counting Activity to help your toddler work on counting independently.
Practical Life - Planting a Butterfly Garden
Last summer Little Guy loved our vegetable garden. As soon as he got outside he would rush over to the raised beds, looking for something to munch on. More often than not he’d grab a little eggplant or bell pepper right off the plant and snack away. We moved to a new house in the winter, so this year we’ve got to build a new vegetable garden, new herb garden, and a new pollinator garden. We’re going to start out with my favorite natives: Black Eyed Susan’s, Echinacea, and Wild Bergamot. I’d love to get my hands on some New England Aster for fall color and to provide nectar through November, but I haven’t seen any at the garden center.
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Location - Find a spot that has good drainage and gets full sun. If you have a vegetable garden, try to place it nearby.
Flowers - Feed your local pollinators with their favorites: native flowers. You’ll need to do a bit of research for your specific area, but it’s well worth it!
Method
If you’re digging up a new bed, you might not want your toddler around for that. It’s hard work that isn’t toddler friendly. This is the best time to add compost to the bed and amend the soil as necessary.
If you’re getting an early start, Grey Skies & Rainbow Highs has a great tutorial on starting seeds with your toddler.
Plan the layout of the flowers, making sure to space them per the plants’ preferences.
Offer your little one a small trowel and help them dig holes under each pot.
Gently remove the plants from the pots and place them in the holes. Cover with soil and water.
It’s generally a good idea to mulch.
Further Reading on Butterfly Gardens and Gardening with Toddlers
Gardeners.com has an excellent article on planting to attract pollinators like butterflies and bees. It’s a good idea to check to make sure that the plants you’re choosing are native to your area, as those tend to be the best for your local pollinators. However, it can be very hard to find local plants for sale in garden stores. I’ve really enjoyed my local native plants group on Facebook and I’ve learned a lot! The members are able to recommend plant shops that sell local plants, swap plants, and sometimes they’ll even share plants that they’re thinning out for free! If there isn’t a native plants group that’s local to you, then try to stick to plants that are less invasive to your area.
For some more tips on starting a successful garden, check out Grey Skies & Rainbow Highs tips.
