For my daughter's birthday we gave her an Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden. It has been the biggest hit with my kids and their friends! We started with five little caterpillars that we sent away for. We watched them eat and eat (we had to borrow The Very Hungry Caterpillar book from the library!) and grow and grow. About a week later we watched them make their way to the top of the cage where they turned into little acrobats and hung upside down in the shape of a "J." In just a few days our caterpillars were silvery cocoons! A few days later we watched them turn to dark brown cocoons and a day or so later we watched them emerge as beautiful butterflies!
This has been the most amazing educational experience for us! Did you know that when a butterfly first comes out of it's cocoon it's body is large and it's wings are small? It has to pump fluid from it's body into it's wings before it can fly. We were able to watch this happen!
My daughter couldn't stand the thought of letting her "pet" butterflies go, and I'm actually glad that we kept them, because it has allowed us to see, first hand, the entire butterfly cycle! My husband jokes that we need to have the "birds and the butterflies" talk with our now curious kids because the butterflies seem to always be mating. We feed the butterflies sugar water on flowers we pick or fresh fruit slices. They seem to really like dandelions and peaches, but milk weed has been their favorite. About two weeks after our butterflies came out of their cocoons, I went to change the peach slice that I had left and noticed it was covered in tiny as a grain of salt caterpillars! We were so excited! Just this morning my daughter discovered lots of very small light green eggs in the bottom of the cage!
We have loved this experience and would recommend it to anyone.
If you're interested in getting your own Insect Lore Live Butterfly Garden, head on over to today's Huntsville, Alabama Groupon where you can grab the Live Butterfly Garden with 3 to 5 caterpillars for only $10! This is by far the best deal that I've ever found on this! And don't worry if you don't need it right away, you'll have a year to use this Groupon. It would make a great Christmas present! This is an online deal, so anyone can grab it!
(Thanks Hip2Save!)
No comments:
Post a Comment