There aren’t many creatures more fascinating than the butterfly. Its tranformation from egg to caterpillar to beautiful butterfly captivates the interest of nature lovers of all ages.
Because the life cycle of a butterfly is quick—just three weeks from caterpillar to butterfly, live butterfly kits make the perfect tool for teaching children about one of life’s true wonders.
While the children are waiting for the caterpillar to grow and undergo its metophormasis into a butterly, a number of experiments and data collating can take place:
Finding out which leaves the caterpillar prefer
Collect a number of different types of leaves to feed your caterpillars and then see what order they get eaten. Which type of leaf goes first? Do any of the leaves get ignored?
Discovering if temperature affects how caterpillars grow
Identify two spot where the temperature is a few degrees different to each other (be careful not to place your caterpillars in direct sunlight). Put half the caterpillar in one place and the rest in the other place and see which set of caterpillars grows the quickest.
Drawing
Get the children to draw detailed pictures of each stage of the butterflies’ life cycle. Use the internet to help identify all the different parts of the anatomy and label the pictures.
Photographs
Use a digital camera to take a picture of the caterpillars each day to chart their growth progress through to the chrysalis stage until they emerge as butterflies. Then arrange the photographs into a slide show.
Discover other types of butterfly
Use the internet or books to identify other types of butterflies and caterpillars. Which ones are your children’s favorites? Where about in the world do they live?
Our medium sized Live Butterfly Kit contains:
- 5 Painted Lady Butterfly Caterpillars (in 1 cup) with food and easy instructions.
- Cool pop-up tent shaped net cage with easy access zipper to set on a table. Collapses for storage.
- Get LIVE caterpillars NOW if you are ready for them OR, get a FREE certificate to mail in for caterpillars later.
- Order ANY time of year- a Fun Winter Project! Instructions included how to keep butterflies inside for their life cycle.
- Comes with: Mister, butterfly feeder, sugar, eye dropper, net cage, easy instructions, coloring page, and caterpillars.
- Guaranteed! We guarantee 3 caterpillars to become happy adult butterflies.
- You can release them outside after observing them if it’s over 50 degrees.
- Please do not order if below 40 degrees or above 90 degrees. Our live arrival guaranty will be void if ordered during these temperatures.
