Children learn best through hands-on activities which are fun and enjoyable. This activity uses simple, cheap craft supplies to enable children to investigate balanced forces while also expressing their creativity.
Once made, the butterflies will balance on a single point, and look great balanced on top of pencils in a desk tidy, or simply on your finger tip!
Equipment and Craft Supplies
In order to make your balancing butterflies you will need the following:
- Card
- Strong glue
- Glue sticks
- Tooth picks / Cocktail sticks
- Scissors
- A range of coloured pencils / pens / glitter pens
- Metal Washers (these can be bought in packs of 20 for under £1 from most DIY stores)
Making and Decorating Your Butterflies
- First you will need to find a butterfly shape. An internet image search for ‘Butterfly Template’ provides a range of options for this. Some are very simple. Others have fairly complex wing shapes, which will be more of a challenge to cut out.
- Select a template which is appropriate to the age of the children, especially if they will be cutting them out themselves (for younger children it is a good idea to cut out the templates in advance).
- Print your butterfly template out onto card. I print six butterfly templates per sheet of A4 card. This means that each butterfly has a wing span of approximately 10cm, making them just the right size for the later stages of this project.
- Cut out your butterfly shapes, and then have fun decorating them with your coloured pens (or anything else which takes your fancy)!
Children could be encouraged to look at pictures of different butterfly species as inspiration for their design, or could simply be allowed to let their creativity flow, and come up with their own unique butterfly pattern!
Trying to make the designs symmetrical also provides a good learning opportunity, and the children could try holding mirrors along their butterfly’s body to see how symmetrical their designs are.
Balancing Your Butterflies – Physics in Action
Once the butterflies have been decorated, the next step is to get them to balance. The aim is to get the butterfly to balance on its ‘nose’ on top of a pencil.
The first step in this process is to make sure that the butterfly is rigid enough to support its own weight. This is done by using the strong glue to attach a tooth pick along the length of the butterfly’s body. The tooth pick should be trimmed before gluing if it is too long, and positioned so that the point of the tooth pick is in the centre of the butterfly’s ‘nose.’ Particularly with younger children, it may be best to get an adult to perform this step.
When this is done, the children can try to balance the butterfly on their finger tip. At this stage the butterfly will simply fall off backwards, as most of its weight is behind the point that they are trying to balance it on.
So how can we solve this problem? We have to add weight to the butterfly in front of the point of the tooth pick that we are trying to balance it on. This can be done by sticking metal washers to the undersides of the front parts of the butterfly’s wings.
Glue sticks are used to do this, as the glue doesn’t dry too quickly, meaning that the washers can be repositioned several times by sliding them across the surface of the card in order to get them in the correct position.
Apply a fairly large amount of glue to both sides of the butterfly’s front wings. Place two washers, one either side, somewhere in front of the point of the tooth pick, and try to balance the butterfly on your finger again.
Only a very lucky few will get their butterfly to balance first time!
If the butterfly still falls off backwards, try sliding the washers further forward.
If the butterfly falls off forwards, slide the washers back a little.
If the butterfly falls to one side, make sure that the weights are placed symmetrically on either side of the butterfly’s body.
This is where the children can develop their investigation skills by using trial and error, and responding appropriately, taking note of the changes in outcome each time they reposition the weights.
Once the butterflies are balanced, they provide a really good visual aid for beginning a discussion about what the children have learned about symmetry and balanced forces.
Vicki Dennison - Vicki has a Ph.D, is a qualified Science teacher, and has a passion for inspiring young people.
