What: A folded paper butterfly that became the basis for a few different moments
How: I saw a video of these on Facebook or Youtube somewhere – it’ll be around. The steps weren’t too hard and I had a go on my own. You need some square paper – not too large – and scissors. Depending on what else you do with the butterflies you’ll want to have blutack, stickytape or string on hand (or whatever else seems useful).
Once I knew what I was doing, I made them with the usual crowd of Kid 6s of both genders that seems to appear in a screeching flurry after school several days a week. The butterflies are a little fiddly in one or two spots but not too bad and all the kids did OK with them. Then they came up with things to do with the butterflies.
A couple of them went on the trampoline. One got thrown around the room but this design doesn’t really fly well so that didn’t last. One went on a string and became a kite – but not a very good one. Then that Kid 6 got some spare paper off me and cut and taped it into a bag, with the butterfly front and centre as decoration and the string repurposed into bag handles.
Extras: If I had florist wire we could make a few of these and stick them on and do flower arranging. A few different sizes and patterns would work well as a mobile. Several of the same size could be attached to a paper chain. Folding them out of something waterproof instead of paper would mean we could hang them outside. They can decorate anything. To me they’re a useful piece for something rather than being terribly exciting themselves, though they did work well for giving the Kid 6 crowd something to fiddle with for ten minutes.
