CATERPILLAR CHRONICLES

Never in my entire life did I think I would voluntarily purchase caterpillars to watch them grow into butterflies for my children, but alas I did. We did this last year, but I wanted to blog about it because my boys seriously loved it and if your weather is steadily warm, then now is about the time you should order them.

If you live in an area that has colder springs, you might want to wait until the beginning of May. Our butterflies emerged at the beginning of May, but then we had a snow storm and it was too cold to release them. We just continued to feed them in their net and then released them a week later.

This is the kit we used. I was nervous that I was going to be responsible for picking up the little caterpillars, feeding them, transferring the chrysalids or that a butterfly would escape in my house and my dog would eat it and scare my children forever. Thankfully NONE of those things happened.

Here’s what I really liked about this kit:

• The caterpillars are already inside the container and so is their food. You never have to touch them or open the container to feed them.

• Pick a spot to put your butterfly container, where it can remain undisturbed for about 3 weeks. We picked a shelf in our butler’s pantry that allowed us to see them really well, but that was out of reach of little fingers.

• The caterpillars become chrysalids on the lid, so once they are cocooned (that’s my mom terminology), you gently open the lid and move it to the butterfly habitat.

• Ours emerged from their cocoons about 4 or 5 days later. As long as the temperature is consistently high enough, you can release them. If it’s still too cold, just continue to add the sugar water and fruit to the habitat until it’s warm enough.

As we watched the caterpillars grow into butterflies, Jack and I did lots of butterfly metamorphosis activities. Now I wish I had saved them or taken pictures of them, but a quick search on Pinterest and I found a ton of options for you!