Butterflies and Chromotography

After observing our butterflies for a few days, it was time to release them.

Come out little butterflies.  

I'm never quick enough to get good pictures during the butterfly release.

Kate made some butterflies that will stick around a little longer.  Chromotography experiments are so easy to set up, and they certainly have a bit of a wow factor.  

Caterpillars

We recently ordered a cup of caterpillars from Insect Lore.  This has been one of my favorite things to do with the kids over the years.

 Kate (with messy hair) made some caterpillar art with a paper towel tube dipped in paint.  She added some details with a paint brush.

 She got a kick out of this caterpillar snack.

 Right before a caterpillar forms a chrysalis, it makes a J shape.

Kate has remembered this little fact, and days later (we already had butterflies at this point) she strung beads onto a pipe cleaner and told me it was a caterpillar in the J shape about to form a chrysalis.  Ahhh, see, this is why I love doing this so much; it is a great learning opportunity.

Science Sunday - Caterpillars

We have been observing caterpillars over the last two weeks.  Below you can see how small they were when we got them and how much they grew in just one week! 

They are now in the chrysalis stage.  C and R love to look at them with a magnifying glass.

R drew a picture of a chrysalis after observing them for a while.

 C and R can both explain the life cycle of a butterfly now.  

We have read a lot of books about caterpillars and butterflies over the last few weeks, but our favorite book about the life cycle of a butterfly is Are You a Butterfly? by Judy Allen.  I like this book because it does a great job explaining the life cycle in terms that a young child can understand.  I also enjoyed the way it is written as if the author is speaking to the reader.

I am happy to be linking up to Science Sunday this week.  If you would like to read more science blog posts, visit Adventures in Mommydom.

Chrysalises

We successfully moved all five chrysalises from the cup they were in to the butterfly habitat.  Phew, it is always a bit stressful moving them. 

Caterpillars - An Update

The caterpillars are growing so fast! 

I read that if a human baby grew as fast as a caterpillar, the baby would weigh about 8 tons at two weeks of age!

They're Here!

If you have been reading my blog for a while, then you know that we raised caterpillars last year and loved the experience.  It really is amazing to watch the caterpillars grow and change.  I could not resist the opportunity to do it all over again this year.  The caterpillars arrived yesterday; they are Painted Lady caterpillars.  This is what they look like right now:

Can you see them in there?  I know this is not the greatest picture.  They come in this little plastic cup that has all the food they need to develop.  If you are wondering, the little green balls in the cup are caterpillar waste ("frass").  The caterpillars will stay in this cup until they have all formed chrysalids; then we will move them into the butterfly habitat.  If you are interested in raising caterpillars, we get ours from Insect Lore. 

Butterfly Update

We have four chyrsalides. There were originally five caterpillars, but one disappeared and I have no idea what happened to it. I transferred the chrysalides to the Butterfly Garden Habitat on Sunday. Wow, was that ever stressful! I was very nervous that I would disturb them at this critical time of metamorphosis. So, now we wait!

We have been talking about the life cycle of a butterfly and C drew the first three stages. He does not want to draw a butterfly until he can observe the butterflies that we will hopefully have soon.R drew all four stages: the circles at the top are eggs, the straight line is a caterpillar, the oval next to the caterpillar is a chrysalis, and between the chrysalis and the eggs you can see a butterfly (it's a side view if you could not tell!).

They are learning so much with this experience! I hope to do this every year. I might even consider the ladybug habitat, not an ant farm though - the thought of having all of those ants in my house is a bit disturbing for me.

A Butterfly Exhibit

Our local zoo has a special butterfly exhibit through the end of this month, and since we are waiting for our caterpillars to go through their metamorphosis, I thought it would be a fun experience!

The Butterfly Life Cycle

We have Painted Lady caterpillars at home so we identified them on this chart, and then we found them in the caterpillar case. Some were still caterpillars and some were in their chrysalides.

C and R enjoyed watching the butterflies. The exhibit was much smaller than the one we saw on our trip to upstate NY, but it was still fun.