For Easter, we got the girls a Butterfly Garden kit. I found it here.
Then we went online and paid $5 shipping to have a little container of caterpillars sent to our house in the mail.
They were teeny little things, about 1/4” long and super skinny. We were all surprised because most of the caterpillars we’ve seen have been kind of fat and long. But then they started eating and growing…
And the book by Eric Carle The Hungry Caterpillar, started to click. In about 7 days they had grown to about 1 1/2 inches long and much fatter!
Then they climbed to the top of the container and hung down like that one above is and built their cocoons. When all 5 of them were done getting all snuggly tight in their cocoons we opened up the container and carefully removed the little paper top that they were hanging from. Then we placed it into the butterfly habitat.
About a week we waited while it seemed like nothing was happening but one morning we came downstairs to find that there was a butterfly!
The next day (my birthday!), the other 4 hatched. Camryn and I were lucky enough to witness two of them actually coming out of their cocoons, pumping up their crumply wings into nice smooth, flat wings. It was magical!
There’s one on the right that is just coming out and his wings aren’t stretched out yet.
We kept them in there for a few days and squirted sugar water on some flowers for them to suck on. We also put a few oranges in there too. After a couple days we decided to let them free, though, because it didn’t seem like they were eating very much.
We took them out back and brought them out of the habitat. It took a couple minutes for most of them to fly away but there was one that was a little timid and he stayed on the ground waiting for about 15 minutes. It was fun to watch.
The booklet said they would probably stay around our area for a few days but we never saw them flying around. Oh well. It was a super fun experience for our family. I highly recommend it!
Me and my girls having fun watching our butterflies take flight:
2 comments:
We will have to do that. Glad to hear you had great success! Love the picture of you with your girls...super cute!!!!!
I want to do that too sometime. It looks like so much fun!
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