For our insect unit, we ordered a butterfly garden. We got a little cup in the mail with six caterpillars inside. They had enough food in the cup to last them until they reached the chrysalis stage. So we watched them eat and eat for about a week, then slowly one by one they wrapped themselves into their little chrysalis. Then after about a week they slowly emerged into beautiful butterflies. Painted lady butterflies to be exact. We fed them sugar water that we put on flowers.
After we noticed that a few of them were mating, we knew that this wasn't the end of our butterfiles.
About a week later we noticed these tiny little blue eggs all over the leaves of the flowers.
They are such fascinating creatures. In this picture you can see the proboscis that uncurls to use like a straw to drink nectar from the flowers.
They look a lot like Monarch butterflies, but are not as large.
One of the best parts was when we would take them out and carefully observe them up close.
Eliza loves all kind of creatures so this was easy for her.
Annie on the other hand could only handle them for a few seconds before they started to tickle her hand and she would get nervous.
We have more eggs now and one of our butterflies has died. The other five are "languishing" as Charlotte would say. It has been a great experience for our family.
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