Here is a STEM activity that uses the concept of roll-a-shape to make a colourful butterfly. Kids will stamp shapes on the wings of a butterfly in response to their roll of a dice. This game provides a fun way to cover essential skills in mathematics, chance, and shape recognition. It is a great play-based activity to promote learning in these areas.
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What do I need for the game?
You will need the following items
- A dice
- Paper
- Texta/Marker
- Paint of different colours (maximum required is 6)
- Shapes to stamp with paint (maximum required is 6). We used the shapes from a Tupperware Shape-O. You could also make them from cardboard or even a potato!
- My FREE roll-a-shape game sheet. This can be accessed using my free resource library. This library is exclusive to my subscribers. Sign up using the form below to gain access. You will need to download the roll-a-shape playing chart.
How do I play the game?
- Draw the outline of a butterfly on the paper using the texta. Make sure the wings are nice and large. These will be used to fill with the shape stamps.
- Roll a dice.
- Match the corresponding result of the dice to the shape on the playing chart.
- Use that shape to stamp a shape outline in paint on the butterfly wings.
- Keep rolling the dice until the wings of the butterfly are full.
- It can be played individually or in groups.
Our results
We made some bright and colourful butterflies with this activity. We also did it again and made a tree as well. You could do any type of ‘base’ drawing that would be of interest to your child.
What to do with missing shapes?
We didn’t have all of the shapes on the playing chart, namely a rectangle. When a ‘4’ was rolled we didn’t have a rectangle to stamp. So before we started, we picked a different shape that we did have in our set and swapped the rectangle in our game to an arc. We wrote out a bit of code for this to show our swap.
We also only used 5 shapes and 5 corresponding colours for our butterflies. This is because we used our square shape for both a ‘square’ and a ‘diamond’. This is a great opportunity for kids to learn about rotation of objects and 2D shapes as well.
What does this game teach?
This activity has a lot of different learning outcomes including:
- Number recognition
- Chance
- Shape recognition
- Rotation
- Dice usage
- Coding
- Process Art
Conclusion
I hope you enjoy making your butterfly pictures. Take this activity outside on a sunny day and see if you can see butterflies in your garden as you play!
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