Butterflies

For Christmas we bought the girls a Butterfly Garden to raise Painted Lady Butterflies. Late in the spring we ordered the caterpillars. They were really tiny when they arrived but very quickly grew and shed their skin. After about two weeks they started hanging upside down and we knew soon each would begin to spin a chrysalis.
It was so fascinating to be able to watch them up so close. If you look closely, you can see the wings all folded up inside! Once the chrysalides were formed we moved them into the butterfly pavilion and waited. We never caught them emerging, they came out so quick! We would literally look away for a minute and look back and there would be a butterfly beginning to pump out it's new wings!
What we found really amazing is that they were very timid and didn't fly much in the net butterfly garden while in the house, but right when we stepped outside carrying the garden net they all started flying around like they knew they were going to be set free.

The girls loved getting a chance to hold them and watch them flutter away.
Throughout the raising of the butterflies we did a unit study on caterpillars and butterflies. We also enjoyed making a really fun double wide lapbook.

(In case you aren't familiar with lapbooking, here is a definition from Wikipedia:
A lap book generally consists of a paperboard folder such as a file folder with small pieces of folded paper glued inside. These folded papers may contain facts, diagrams, illustrations, etc. related to the subject. Lap books can be adapted for any subject and grade level. Teachers and parents who use lap books with students say that they enhance creativity and critical thinking while integrating subjects such as science, language, and mathematics, depending on the subject of the lap book.)Each little folded paper has a meaning and opens up to show something that Tess studied. We love doing lapbooks, not only does it help to retain the information learned, but Tess frequently goes back over her lapbooks and reviews on her own things she has learned. Here you can see the circles for the caterpillar each had questions/facts she learned. She illustrated a few predators of butterflies, wrote a list comparing moths and butterflies and inside the "C for Caterpillar" fold is a word search on C words.
Here is another part of the lapbook which included The Very Hungry Caterpillar days of the week mini book activity, butterfly facts math questions and answers, a B word search, illustrations on how butterflies stay safe, life cycle of a butterfly, a really difficult monarch migration maze and some other activities.
We read lots of books on butterflies, labeled butterfly parts and learned this rhyme which they girls loved to recite:
After we set our butterflies free, we had a little party and the girls dressed up with wings and antennas and used their proboscises (straws) to slurp nectar (orange juice, apple juice and honey) from their flowers (plastic cups with petals taped on.) Fun!
Our final part of our butterfly unit was going to a butterfly show which will be the next post! We love butterflies!