No. 1: Memory Game
It is easy to collect material for a memory game using leaves, flowers and berries. You can e.g. get one pair of a butterfly-friendly plant by taking the leaves of a hazelnut and its nut which is the food plant of geometers. Another example is lilac which is a source of nectar to a lot of butterflies. You can use its leaves and the large blossoms. The hollyhock is home to eggs and caterpillars and its blossoms provide nectar to butterflies. If you have read my website carefully, you will have found lots more examples. Have fun!
No. 2: The Matching Game
The children use watercolours to paint butterfly pictures and cut out the butterflies. Choose a wild meadow, a nature garden or a park for playing. Give the children a signal to move and look for a butterfly-friendly plant on which they place their butterfly picture. Talk to the children about why they have chosen the plant and to which butterflies they can provide food or habitat. At the next signal they look for a different place. Here you go!
No. 3: The Flutter Dance
The children make butterfly wings from cardboard and dance as butterflies through the garden to the sound of the song "Schmetterling, du kleines Ding" (a German song about butterflies, maybe you have got something suitable in your language). Once the song ends the children look for a place that would be suitable as the habitat of a butterfly. If few children can find a place, that provides an opportunity for thinking about a reorganization of the garden to offer more endangered butterfly species a habitat. Children definitely like to help sow plants. Have success!
