Bug and Insect Crafts for Kids

Crafts and Activities Relating to Bugs and Insects

Ant Crafts

Styrofoam Ant Craft

What you will need:  2 - 2 1/2" Styrofoam eggs, 1 1/2"" Styrofoam ball, 4 pipe cleaners, wiggly eyes, black or red acrylic paint, and toothpicks (the large type)
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What to do:

1. Poke two toothpicks halfway into the big end of both egg shapes. Press the ball onto one egg shape and then press the other egg shape onto the other end of the ball shape.

2. Paint the ant with black or red acrylic paint.

3. When the paint is dry cut the pipe cleaners in half, save two halves for the antennae. Fold the other halves in half and twist the ends around each other. Insert the folded pipe cleaners (pointy ends into the Styrofoam) into the middle of the body for legs. Fold them to look like ant legs. Insert the reserved half pipe cleaners into the head and glue on eyes.

Learn more about ants at About.com Guide to Family Crafts - You'll find links to sites that tell you how to make an ant hill, ant recipes, ant activities, educational pictures, coloring sheets, more ant crafts and directions on how to make your own ant farm.

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Bee Crafts

Go to the Bee Crafts and Activities Page

Dragon Fly Bug Craft for Kids

What you will need: Jumbo craft sticks, 2" oval wooden piece, 1 1/2" oval wooden piece, 1/2" or 3/4" round wooden pieces for the eyes (fun foam shapes can be substituted), paint, glitter paint, clear packaging tape or clear contact paper, black permanent marker, glue.
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What to do:

1. Paint all the wooden pieces and set them aside to dry.

2. Print out the dragon fly wing pattern. Put two pieces of tape or contact paper sticky sides together.  Place the tape on top of the wing pattern and trace them onto the tape.  Make two of each pattern. Cut the wings out. When your paint is dry glue the wings to the top of the jumbo craft stick with the larger wings on top as shown.

3. Glue the large oval over the wings. 

4. Glue the eyes on each side of the small oval and then glue that piece onto underside of the large oval.

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Dung Beetle Refrigerator Magnet Craft 

What you will need: Black pipecleaners, foam eggs, small black pompoms, tiny beads, computer paper, black Sharpy markers or black acrylic paint, and tacky glue.
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1. Cut pipecleaners into 2 1/2" pieces and cut the foam egg in half lengthwise.

2. Give each child half a foam egg, six pipecleaner pieces, and a black pompom.

3. Have them stick the pipecleaners into the bottom of the foam egg and bend them up for the legs, and then glue the black pompom on one end of the egg for the head, and glue beads on for eyes.

4. To finish, paint the beetle with black paint or use black Sharpy markers.

Learn more about Dung Beetle with the Bug Buddies Study on Dung Beetles - Go to the Bug Buddies Study Page

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Walking Stick Bug Craft for Kids

What you will need: Sticks, brown or tan pipe cleaners, eyes.
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What to do: 

1. Fold 3 pipe cleaners in half.  Place a pipe cleaner on the stick at the fold. Wind the pipe cleaners around the stick by bringing the ends of the pipe cleaners around each other and twisting.  Bend the legs so that one joint comes up over the stick.  Make two more bends in the pipe cleaner.  Do this for the other two sets of legs.

2. To make the antennae fold a pipe cleaner in half.  Put it over the head end of your bug.  Wind the pipe cleaner around the tip of the stick to make the head.

3. Glue on eyes.

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"All About Walking Stick Bugs" Book Craft

This craft and learning activity is great to use in lap books. Children glue sticks on the cover of the book to make a walking stick bug and then write about walking sticks inside.

This craft is available in the "Bug Buddies Study" - Christian Home School Materials about God's Amazing Little Creatures".

This set of lessons introduces children to amazing insects. Each lesson emphasizes a Biblical concept relating it to a specific bug, and encourages children to learn more about bugs.

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Sticks and Things Bug Craft

Collect dried leaves, flowers, sticks, stones, seeds, shells, acorns, etc. that you can use to make bugs. Glue the pieces together on a piece of 5" x 5" card stock. Aleene's Tacky glue works very well for this project.

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Bug Buddies Studies

A Christian-based set of studies that introduces children to a variety of amazing insects.

Praying Mantis Insect Craft for Kids

What you will need: Card stock, markers or crayons, tape and glue, scissors
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What to do:

1. Print out the body pattern for the praying mantis and the feet and wing pattern.

2. Color the patterns and then cut them out.

3. Fold the mantis' head down away from you at the straight dotted line B and then unfold.  Fold the Mantis' neck up at the dotted line D and then unfold.  Fold the mantis body  in half lengthwise.

4. With the Mantis folded in half long ways. Fold line A towards you and then away from you and then unfold. Unfold the Mantis about half way.  While pressing in on line B press down on the Mantis nose so that line A goes up over line B. With the Mantis folded in half length ways.  Fold line C and line D back and then forward and then unfold. Unfold the Mantis part way lengthwise.  While folding line B up again press line D up to line C and press the Mantis together lengthwise. 

5. Glue the Mantis' legs onto the body as shown in the picture. For extra stability you can cut extra legs and glue them together to make them stronger. Fold the Mantis wing in half and glue it to the top of the Mantis' body. Cut out antennae and glue them to the head.

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Ladybug Crafts

Ladybug Crafts for Kids - Go to the Ladybug Crafts Page for craft and Activities

You will find a ladybug rock craft, ladybugs with moveable wings craft, and crafts and activities to go with Eric Carle's book, The Groucy Ladybug,

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3D Paper Goliath Beetle Craft

This beetle is fairly simple to make using only 6 parts - a circle for the thorax, two wing patterns, the under part of the beetle and its legs, and then two forelegs. It is made from card stock (Heavy paper) and constuction paper. After assembling the bug children can paint it to look like a Goliath Beetle, and add pompom eyes. This craft is available to members only.

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Changing Colors Golden Tortoise Beetle Paper Craft

What you will need: Computer paper, glue, gold and red crayons, scissors, and black paper
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What to do:

1. Draw a large circle on a piece of paper and add eyes, head, and wings to make a beetle (see picture above). Make an exact copy. Color one beetle red and the other gold. Draw another circle the same size onto white computer paper. (Printable patterns for this craft are available to members.)

2. Cut the beetles and the white circle out.

3. Fold the colored beetle patterns in half so that the right side is inside, then glue the patterns back-to-back, wrong sides together, the right side of yellow beetle to the back of the left side of the red beetle.

4. Cut out antennae and legs and glue them onto the white circle. Glue the left side of the yellow pattern and the right side of the red pattern onto the bottom pattern. When you flip over one side of the beetle it will turn a different color.

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Mosquito Craft for Kids

What you will need: Black poster board, card stock paper, pipe cleaner, milky pens, paper clasps, hole punch
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What to do:

1. Print out the free pattern onto card stock. Cut out the body and head from black poster board. Glue the head onto the body. Cut the wings out and punch a hole where indicated.  Punch holes in the body where the x's are.

2. Feed one pipe cleaner through the top left hole from front to back and then into the top right hole from the back to front.  Pull the pipe cleaner half way through so that the legs are even. Fold the legs as shown in the picture.  Do the same thing with the next to set of holes.  Attach the wings where indicted with two paper clasps so that the wings will move.

3. Draw the eyes.

4. Fold half a pipe cleaner in half to form the antennae and tape them to the back of the head. Punch a hole for the proboscis and feed a pipe cleaner through the hole wind it around itself and cut it to the length you would like.

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Butterfly, Caterpillar, and Inchworm Crafts for Kids

Go to the Butterfly Craft Page for lots of Butterfly, Caterpillar, and Inchworm crafts .

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Paper Chain Butterfly Craft for Kids

A fun project that even very small children can help with. My child's response to seeing her first paper chain was "Wow!" © Carolyn Warvel

What you will need: Paper (any type colored paper or plain paper) We used standard typing paper, Scissors (a good pair since you will be cutting at least  4 layers at once), Paint, markers, crayons etc. (optional) and tape.
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 What to do:

1. Paint the paper with finger paints by putting dabs of color on the paper and folding over the  paper to make a pretty pattern. (Small children as young as one year old will have fun with this step. Let the paper dry. Or use crayons or markers to decorate the paper.

2. Fold the paper in half from the long end. Unfold. Use the fold as a guide to fold the paper in a fan pattern with 4 equal sections.

3. Print out the free butterfly (pattern) and use tracing paper to copy it to the folded paper. (The pattern should fit on 3 times).

4. Cut out the butterflies remembering to leave the tip of the wings attached. Tape the 3 chains together to make one long chain.

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Butterfly Magnet with a Dry Erase Board for the Refrigerator

This craft is available through Oriental Trading Company. All the supplies are precut and packaged into separate projects. Type in 48/2539 in the search box to find this craft. It costs $6.00 to make 12 butterflies. about 50 cents each. I provided other foam pieces so the children could make theirs different if they wanted to.

Bug Feelers and Bug Eyes Head Band

What you will need: Construction paper, pipe cleaners, tape, stapler, pompoms with holes in them, paper, markers or crayons, scissors, and glue.

What to do:

To make the headband cut a piece of construction paper in half lengthwise. Fold each piece in half lengthwise.  Unfold the pieces and fold the sides in to meet the center fold.  Unfold the halves and tape them together to make a long band.  Fold them back up. Fit the bands to each child's head and staple them. You may have to add another piece for older children. Cover the staples with tape so that the staple don't scratch the children's head.  Show the children how to wind a pipe cleaner around a pencil to make it into a spring shape.  Let the children pick out two pompom balls. Place a small amount of glue at the end of the pipe cleaner and push it through the pompoms. Staple the feelers inside the band.  Let the children draw eyes on a piece of paper and cut them out and then tape them to the band.

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More Bug Crafts on The Resource Room The Resource Room is designed for Sunday School teachers and home school parents.  All of the crafts on The Resource Room are biblically based .  Most of the crafts go along with one of the Bible lessons found on The Resource Room.  All the crafts were designed for preschool and elementary age children. All the crafts are original and inexpensive which are great for home school use and large groups such as Sunday school classes and vacation Bible school. Grasshopper, Cricket, or Locust Craft - Print out the pattern, color and cut out to make this cute 3-D grasshopper.    Bee Crafts Plaster of Paris Bee Magnet craft - made from pompom, wooden pieces and plastic spoon as a mold to make the body. Bee made from craft spoon and wooden hearts. Bee and flower mobile. Caterpillar to Butterfly Folder Paper Craft This picture looks like a picture of a caterpillar when you look at it from one direction and a butterfly when you look at it from another direction. "Everything God has Made is Good" Spider and Spider Web - This little spider is holding the Bible verse "And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good." to remind children that even spiders and other slimy, scary animals are good.

Crafts on other Pages of this site:

Spider Bag Puppet Craft

Ladybug Candy Holder Craft

Lady Bug Plant Stake Craft

 

Insect Crafts on Other Sites

Create a Bug Mask on TrustTerminix.com. Print out the mask pieces, color and glue together. You will also find interactive games such as Create-a-bug and Swarmer Slider Puzzle, coloring sheets, an ant maze, and bug word searches.

Praying Mantis Printout from Enchanted Learning.

Insects made from leaves, stick and other natural items from the University of Kentucky Entomology Web Site.

Caterpillar turns into a butterfly - Cut and fold paper craft.

Eric Carle Web Site - There are lots of craft and activity ideas here that go along with his books such as "The Very Hungry Catepillar, "The Grouch Ladybug", "The Very Busy Spider", "The Very Lonely Caterpillar, and"The Very Quiet Cricket".

Free Sample Lessons from
The Resource Room

Free
Scaredy Cat
Daniel in the Lion's Den