About a month ago when we were at Navy Pier looking at the Children's Museum Store we found a butterfly habitat kit. I bought one for my niece Maggie a while ago, and it was a big hit so I thought that our kids would like to try it. We sent away for the caterpillars and they arrived in about a week, they were so cute, little and fuzzy. The kids loved to watch them inch up the container. Rylan wrote down observations of the caterpillars and their growth every couple days.
After about 10 days they crawled to the top and formed chrysalises . . .
All except one formed a chrysalis we carefully pined the small sheet of paper to the habitat an waited. We never did see a butterfly actually come out, it must have happened too fast. We just noticed the empty chrysalis and a new butterfly. We fed them watermelon, apples and sugar water, and when they were big enough it was time to release them. 3 out of the 5 became butterflies,
We let some kids watch. . .
The first two shot out of the cage and flew up so high and fast, the third lingered and after some coaching from Madelyn
she flew off on to a nearby flower and stayed there for a while. According to Madelyn all butterflies are girls because they are too pretty to be boys.
It was a fun thing for my kids to watch, and to experience this part of nature that we normally wouldn't get to see.
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I packed up our little butterfly tent due to the great bedbug episode of 2011.... but once we unpack everything, I'll order some new butterflies. They were so fun!