We've been studying caterpillars and butterflies for the last several weeks. We ordered our caterpillars from Insect Lore and they were greatly anticipated! We had such a wonderful time watching them eat and grow and within a week they were hanging upside down changing into their chrysalis! One week later, they were butterflies! 
This butterfly is still in its butterfly habitat before Gracie pulled it out.
They've grown so accustomed to us, they let us hold them for quite a while!
This little fellow even hung around for some close ups before flying off to find a new home!
Here are the girls, saying their final goodbyes. Madilyn blew each of her butterflies a kiss and said, "I hope you find a wonderful new home!" We know at least one of these butterflies will lay eggs soon and continue the cycle. We um, caught two of them, um, mating. But it is a beautiful thing to see the circle of butterfly life and the girls are thrilled to know that soon there will be more butterflies fluttering around our house.
This butterfly is still in its butterfly habitat before Gracie pulled it out.
They've grown so accustomed to us, they let us hold them for quite a while!
This little fellow even hung around for some close ups before flying off to find a new home!Here are the girls, saying their final goodbyes. Madilyn blew each of her butterflies a kiss and said, "I hope you find a wonderful new home!" We know at least one of these butterflies will lay eggs soon and continue the cycle. We um, caught two of them, um, mating. But it is a beautiful thing to see the circle of butterfly life and the girls are thrilled to know that soon there will be more butterflies fluttering around our house.
3 comments:
So....is that "l" word the study of butterflies. I am so impressed! The girls look so big!!
I LOVE butterflies too! It's such an amazing learning experience for everyone involved to watch the transformation. We did this last year with monarchs.
I read that caterpillars MUST go through the 'struggle' of emerging from their crysallis or they will not survive. Even if you take a fully mature butterfly in it's crysallis and carfully cut the crysallis open it 'free' it the butterfly will not survive...I found that to be very enlightening in it's similarities with our growth (physical, emotional and spiritual) as well....EVERY step is important!!
OX~Tam
Robyn, we just recently did this project, too. The girls were so excited when our butterflies emerged. We had 4 out of 6 that survived. One appeared to have some type of birth defect and never fully emerged from its chrysalis (sp?) and the other died after emerging (not sure why). Anyway, we also saw ours "mating" in their habitat. We had planned to let them go this weekend after we returned from the homeschool convention in Orlando. Got home today, the girls and I were about to go outside and release them when I noticed the habitat net was COVERED with something tiny and black. Upon closer inspection, I discovered it was hundreds of tiny tiny caterpillars! I guess while we were gone they hatched!!! So now I'm wondering how many will be in our house! ;0) We took the habitat outside and we will watch it on the porch to see if any of them grow and emerge...I had no idea that there would be that many babies!!! I said to Brian "we have babies, lots and lots of babies, what should we do?" and Kina chimed in immediately with "call 911!!" and we all laughed hysterically! She's so funny.
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