Elementary, Primary Autism, B is for Butterfly, (Rice Paper Butterfly) Las Vegas, NV

This artist was in a Primary Autism class where I was a Substitute Teacher in Las Vegas, NV and I had asked the teacher aids if they thought a little coloring could be fun for the students during a 15-minute window. I was there for a few days so we tried it and it was a nice window where they could take a little creative Art Brain Break between their pretty busy daily schedules.

This student was maybe 5-6 years old and so focused. He started on the one on the bottom right and colored one wing red. Then the next 15-minute window he colored the left wing blue. He left the Art Mode one empty until the end of the day when he had another 15-minute window and hurried to finish the whole butterfly in one sitting.

I include the two versions, Art Mode, which is a coloring book outline only, and the White Mode which has a lot of black already colored in to save the artist time (and black marker) as that is usually the most unavailable color in the room. White Mode can pretty much function on it's own and look "done" no matter how far you get coloring it, and it's on white background so it's easy to frame, cut out, and do something else with it if the artist wants to.

The thing that struck me the most about this artist is how excited he was to learn he got to take the page home. He didn't want to put it up on the wall in the classroom but instead he wanted to bring it home to his dad so he would put it up on the refrigerator at home so they could look at it all the time together.

Kids really like keeping their art.

Let's give them more stuff to make art with so they can keep more of their work.

October 2025

Las Vegas, NV