Tuesday, May 6, 2008

The Butterfly Experiment


This year for Gabriel's birthday my sister, Jessica, gave him a butterfly habitat. It was one of the neatest gifts any of my children have received. You are given a mesh enclosure and a certificate to send in for caterpillar larvae. After you receive the caterpillars you can witness them changing into cocoons and then change into butterflies. These particular butterflies are called "Painted Lady Monarchs" and are just beautiful. You are supposed to wait for a nice day. After the butterflies "hatched" we waited for a sunny day - while we did we fed them sugar water that had been sprayed onto flowers. We had five in all. One sunny Saturday afternoon we went outside and let the butterflies go. Here is a picture of one. Ellie loves butterflies and her excitement proved it. She giggled and laughed with pure delight. The boys had big smiles on their faces. It was so much fun to see "their butterflies" obtain freedom amongst the flowers and shrubs. This was a wonderful gift and has created a memory that shall last in the minds of our children as a particularly sweet one. I would recommend this gift to everyone! It was a success!

1 comment:

Amanda said...

my sister recieved one of these when she was younger and I remember really enjoying it. I had forgotten about it until I read your post. It is an amazing thing what God does with even the smallest creatures!