Raising Butterflies

Earlier this summer we finally marked an item off our summer bucket list that we've wanted to try for a couple of years now - raising butterflies. I'm so glad that we got the chance, but I must say it was definitely a learning opportunity filled with lessons about what not to do next time. Our caterpillars arrived quite large, which we were told was due to waiting too late into the year and they growing more quickly in transit.

     

I'm still unsure about that claim but regardless we started with quite large caterpillars, and within a matter of a couple of days we had some forming their chrysalis on the bottom of the jar. I'm thinking perhaps they were trying to form in transit and were knocked down during the trip. Either way we were happy to have at least a couple that formed properly and hoped that moving the others to the netted area would give them a good chance of somehow surviving.

 

 

 Our unit study area quickly became the favorite spot in the house as we all anxiously waited, hoping that we would have at least a few butterflies to come to life.  We were so excited when we finally saw the butterflies emerge!  

 

I'm happy to report that in the end we had 3 perfect butterflies and a whole host of experience.  I have no doubt that we'll try this again next year (though perhaps in the Spring instead) and see what new lessons we might learn then.  I wish we could have gotten pictures of them once we released them but they flew away much too quickly.  It was definitely one of our highlights of the summer.