I recently found a caterpillar in the house. It was just staying still right above our garbage can. Since I found it, I figured this would be a great opportunity to have a pet caterpillar and watch it grow in to a butterfly. My daughters have never gotten to see the process, so I thought this would be the perfect time. We decided to go outside and check to see if we could find anymore around the house. We have a lot of milk weed around our home, so we easily found more caterpillars. We found ten of them. We knew that keeping them in a jar wasn’t go to work with that many caterpillars. I talked with my father since he’s good at building things, and he built a wonderful caterpillar/butterfly house for them.
I thought he did a wonderful job on this house. It’s got a lot of space for the caterpillars to move around and make their cocoons. We made sure that there was screening on the sides so that they could breathe as well. We also put some milkweed in there for all the caterpillars too. Of course there were sticks in there too, since they love to climb on sticks and make their cocoons there.
Unfortunately we did lose some of the caterpillars. We have 6 that have made their cocoons and four of them didn’t make it. Some of them were trying to make cocoons and they fell and didn’t make it. We tried to save one by attaching it to a q-tip, but unfortunately that one didn’t make it either. We have to be very careful not to bump the house so that none of the cocoons fall down. It’s definitely a great project with the kids. They’re learning a lot already.
We can’t wait for them to turn in to butterflies! We’re hoping that some of them will become butterflies soon. It’s been over a week since some of them have made their cocoons. Hopefully we will get some butterflies soon. We’re all excited to see them!
Have you ever kept caterpillars and waited til they turned to butterflies? If so, what was the experience like?
I would probably sit and watch this for hours. How cool! Can’t wait to hear what happens.
My husband would sit there forever just watching them. 🙂 It’s nice to have these for my daughters to watch them grow.
Such a fun project to have made! My boys loved watching the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly.
I think it’s wonderful for kids to be able to watch them grow. They can learn a lot.
Wow. What a beautiful job. Those are some lucky butterflies and I bet it comes in handy will other critters later!
It sure will! It’s going to be nice for all kinds of critters!
This is such a great at-home project for kids. Too bad not all of them are going to make it, but I’m sure that happens in nature too.
Yep, it sure does. Usually if they fall down from making a cocoon then they don’t make it. Sadly that’s what happened with some of ours.
We had a neighbor that collected a bunch of caterpillars to see if they would grow into butterflies but his sister tossed them out. What a fun project for the kids.
Aww sad to hear she tossed them out. It sure is a fun project to do with the kids.
THis is so great! My kids would be in heaven with this in our home, they love watching nature!
They certainly are neat to watch. I think every kid should have the chance to watch them grow.
That is an amazing butterfly house! We have never kept caterpillars, but now I really would like to do that with my girls.
It’s a wonderful project to do with the kids. This is my kids first time having caterpillars too.