When it comes to math skills such as fact families, I like to give my students lots of hands-on practice. As the weather warms up, this butterfly fact family math craft will not only keep your students engaged with their springtime learning, but will also be a fun way for students to demonstrate their knowledge of fact families! Students will use insect tongs to pick the numbers for their fact family, and then create a butterfly craft to showcase their facts. The finished crafts also make a great springtime bulletin board!
Before your students do the craft, you will need to use a permanent marker to write numbers 1-9 onto Colorful Butterfly Counters. Repeat this until you have enough for a class set. Each pair of students in your class will need a set of Colorful Butterfly Counters with the numbers 1-9 written on them.
Place each set of 9 numbered Colorful Butterfly Counters into a Pint Mason Jar along with a Super Science Tong. Each set of partners will receive one of these.
Students will need to assemble the Paint Chip 3D Butterfly Magnet Craft by gluing the wings and body together. Each kit has individual butterfly supplies for each student, which is so convenient to hand out! Even though the instructions in the craft kit say to glue the black pipe cleaner to the back of the butterfly, I recommend using a piece of clear tape to attach it to the back of the butterfly head. Students will need to twirl the ends of the pipe cleaner after it is attached.
Each child will use a Super Science Tong to pull out 2 Colorful Butterfly Counters. Students will write both numbers on the body of the Paint Chip 3D Butterfly Magnet Craft with a permanent marker. Then they will add the two numbers together to get their whole, which they will write on the butterfly head. For example, if they pick the butterfly counters with a number 5 and 4 their whole would be 9.
Students will use a permanent marker to write a fact on each butterfly wing with the numbers for their fact family. For example for the numbers 4, 5, and 9 their first wing would be 4+5=9, wing 2 would be 5+4=9, wing 3 would be 9-4=5 and then wing 4 would be 9-5=4. I love how this craft turned out!
You can display students' fact family butterfly crafts on a colorful "Take Flight with Fact Families Bulletin Board" bulletin board. Click HERE to read how to make this springtime bulletin board.