Butterflies!

When I was six years old my family moved to Pleasanton, California from Salt Lake City, Utah. It was a hard adjustment for me and because I was a weird age for kindergarten (the deadline is different in California from Utah) I got placed in Pre-First. I remember not liking the teacher and having a hard time for the first few months I was there. But in the spring, our class did a project that has given me fond memories of Pre-First ever since. We each got our own caterpillar in a jar and got to watch it grow and become a butterfly. I still remember the day the butterflies got released. So naturally, when I saw the commercial for the Live Butterfly Garden on TV, I had to buy it so I could share the experience with my kids!

When our caterpillars finally arrived in the mail we were so excited! There were 5 caterpillars and enough food on the bottom of the container to last till they changed to chrysalides. Ian had already done the whole butterfly thing in Kindergarten a couple weeks earlier, but he was super excited to do it again. I was actually surprised that Hailey was just as fascinated by it as her brother!

The kids had to check on their caterpillars about every 15 minutes. We put them up high when the twins were up, who knows what those boys would have done to them.
After about seven days the caterpillars crawled to the top of the container and hung upside down until they turned into chrysalides. Ian and I ate our lunch in my room so we could watch them without distraction. Those caterpillars are sneaky I'm telling you! We went out of the room for 10 minutes and one changed. Crazy. We never did catch one "in the act" but we did see one just finishing up. I am used to silk worms that spin a cocoon slowly, you can see them doing it quite easily. These caterpillars just decide to change, and they change. It's really weird. In this picture you can see the one changed chrysalis and 3 unchanged, hanging caterpillars.
After all 5 had made the change, we removed the paper liner that was under the lid and pinned it to the side of the butterfly habitat. One of the chrysalides totally freaked out and started shaking violently. I never knew they could do that, did you? You can kind of see the movement in the one to the far left.

Eight days later and ta-da! The butterflies began to emerge. Sorry about the poor picture quality, they were taken through the screen. This is the only one we actually saw come out.

The directions said they like freshly cut oranges and to dip tissues in sugar water so they can drink it. We found out, however, that they aren't that interested in eating anything for the first day and a half, so we kind of wasted the oranges. The most effective method of feeding ended up being a little lid with some sugar water in it. I think they would have liked the oranges if I had put them in a few days after they emerged though.

We released our butterflies into the "wild" this morning. It was kind of fun, and actually harder to get them out of that cage than you would think. But once they got out, they were long gone.

A couple of them flew straight to our oleanders and sipped some nectar before flying away.

Can you see it?

This was SO worth every penny spent. It was educational, interesting, entertaining, and the kids never got sick of it. If you're thinking about doing it, go ahead, it's so fun! We will probably do it again in a couple years :)