Fingerprint Butterflies

Explicit Instruction/Teacher Modeling

• Teach the names of each of the fingers. Prepare a diagram of an enlarged hand with labeled fingers. Draw it on a blackboard or whiteboard, or find a picture of one and project it for the children to see.
• Keep the image up while the children work on their art activity.

Guided Practice/Interactive Modeling

• Help students put one color on each of their fingers and assist them with putting their prints on paper.
• Once all students have their butterfly prints on paper, have them glue down the pipe cleaner body.

Independent Working Time

• Finally, have the students use your diagram or visual representation to label each of their butterfly fingerprints.
• If your class is too young to write that many words, you can have the different fingers on labels and then have students place the labels above the correct finger.

• Enrichment: Have advanced students make pairs of fingerprints on index cards. They can mix the cards up and try to find the pair by examining the ridges in the finger prints.
• Support: You can make the labels pieces of paper and not stickers. Have the students place the paper labels above the finger prints and then check their answers before they put permanent labels on.

• Look at the writing or labels above each of the fingers to see if each of the students marked everything correctly.

• Have the children point to the finger on their hand as you call out each of the different fingers.
• Have them tell you what they enjoyed about the activity.