CraftyFileCo planning guide

Spring Bug Crafts: Bees, Caterpillars and Butterflies

Choose a spring bug paper craft by the making task: arrange a beehive scene, join a caterpillar's parts or fold an accordion support for a bouncing butterfly. Use the first two for cut-and-glue pictures and the butterfly when folding is part of the activity.

Build a bee scene from an outline page

The beehive template includes a hive, bee, branch, flowers and leaves. It is a black-and-white colouring design supplied in A4 and US Letter PDFs.

The process is to colour the parts, cut the dotted outlines, arrange them and glue them together. White cardstock or thick paper is recommended, with adult supervision when children use scissors.

As a spring display suggestion, let children choose where flowers and leaves belong before attaching anything. The arrangement can vary without changing the hive's supplied pieces. Use separate learning resources for facts about bees; the printable is an illustrated craft scene.

Join the caterpillar's body and features

The caterpillar set includes large circular head and body pieces, separate facial features, two antennae and five legs. Both coloured and black-and-white templates come in A4 and US Letter.

Arrange the circles first, then attach the eyes, cheeks, smile, antennae and legs. Keep the small face pieces beside the matching body so they do not disappear among other children's cutouts.

The listing suggests approximately ages 3-7 depending on cutting and colouring ability. It recommends adult supervision with scissors and glue. Its materials include paper or cardstock, colouring tools, scissors and a glue stick.

Choose the pre-coloured version if your session is about assembly. Choose outlines when children want to decide the colours before joining the parts.

Fold the butterfly's accordion supports

The butterfly download has five black-and-white pages in both paper sizes. Each page includes a butterfly, flower base, two leaves and two accordion strips.

Children colour and cut the parts, fold the strips and glue the craft together. The folded strips create the bouncing effect when the butterfly is pressed gently.

Make one sample of that folding stage before presenting it to the group. A strip folded repeatedly in the same direction will behave differently from an accordion; show the alternating folds with the supplied directions beside you.

Separate craft choices from a science sequence

Use this session checklist:

• Pick one assembly task for the demonstration.
• Print the colouring or coloured version actually listed.
• Plan cutting help and a place for small pieces.
• Complete colouring before joins obscure the surface.
• Leave glue to set before handling moving parts.

These are three separate downloads. Their bee, caterpillar and butterfly themes give you choices for spring crafting, rather than a supplied sequence showing one animal's life cycle.

By CraftyFileCo · Published 2026-11-07 · Updated 2026-11-07