Summer Science Project

My cousin Becky gave Abby and Luke a butterfly house for their birthday.  For summer preschool at work we ordered caterpillars for all the classrooms and luckily we had an extra container...hence our little summer science project.  The kids were beyond thrilled when I showed them the caterpillars and thank goodness we didn't have to wait too long before they changed into their crysallis.  It was really neat to watch the process.  Did you know that when a crysallis shakes, it is warding off predators? 

 

After all the caterpillars changed we moved the paper ring into the butterfly house and waited for them to hatch.  Everyday the first thing we did was check our butterflies!  That is caterpillar food hanging down from the paper.

After about a week we had our first butterfly...I think it was named Orangie.  We also had Princess, Flutter, Inch and Fly.  For a good two weeks we picked flowers everyday and sprinkled them with sugar water to feed our butterflies.  We decided that it was time to set them free when one got stuck to the sugar water and couldn't fly. :-(  Luke was devastated that they were leaving him but after some convincing he decided that yes, they did need to go live in nature.  We have had a few butterflies around our flowers and we are pretty sure it is Orangie and Princess coming back to see us.