Growing Butterflies & Ladybugs
Every Spring we love to dive a little deeper and observe something from the life sciences up close with an at-home kit. The first year we did this, my twins were 6 and we did a butterfly kit. The next year we ordered a tadpole (which aren’t available anymore). Spot, our tadpole, survived for about 18 months and never changed into a frog…it was slightly anti-climatic. We did our research and learned some tadpoles have a genetic condition in which they never go through metamorphosis. So either that happened with our little guy or I also wonder that since he arrived via mail and they aren’t sold anymore… maybe he came from somewhere that wasn’t very natural…yikes! I don’t know. Last year we studied worms and my 5 year old loved it. He was obsessed with collecting worms all summer. He even brought them inside a handful of time, ha! This year, since my two younger boys have never observed butterflies before, I gifted my three year old son butterfly kits for Easter and then added the ladybugs kit on when we went to redeem our vouchers.
My boys did love it and it was so fun to watch them experience the magic of metamorphosis up close for the first time! It was priceless watching my toddler handle everything so carefully as not to disrupt the little creatures. I’ve never observed ladybugs before so that was another highlight for me! For my younger boys, having the life cycle figurines and life cycle board was perfect. Since the girls have done this before, they felt like pros teaching the boys all about it.
This time around, it was fascinating to watch my older girls observe the butterflies in such a different way than they had 3 years ago! Instead of just the simplicity of the life cycle, they started questioning all sorts of other things like how to tell the difference between a male/female butterfly and why the butterflies “bled” when they come out of their chrysalises. They researched their own answers and discovered on Monarch butterflies males have little black spots on their wings where females do not. And, the “bleeding” is actually not blood at all. A butterfly’s blood is actually clear and the red liquid that appears is called meconium and is left over waste from metamorphosis. Now that they have some of the basic skills behind them, it’s so beautiful to see them blossom and take the reigns on their own interests.
I really wish we would’ve added to our science journals and regret not making it more of a priority. I have a lot going on right now and it just totally fell through the cracks…we’re getting ready for a big trip right now, but when we get home, I may encourage the kids to at least do a journal entry or notebooking page on their experience. We took lots of video and pictures so we do have those memories, but there is just something special about having their little records. So, if you’re going to do something similar, keep this in mind!
As usual, we read lots of stories about butterflies and ladybugs from the library. We especially loved Eric Carle’s classics The Very Hungry Caterpillar and The Grouchy Ladybug. One I hadn’t read before by Julia Donaldson called What the Ladybug Heard was so cute! All my kids loved it. A fact-based favorite of ours is the Big Book of Bugs which has two beautiful spreads on butterflies and ladybugs. Slow Down is another classic we love to pull from too.
Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian was such an interesting read. During the medieval time period, I didn’t realize bugs that went through metamorphosis were considered evil. It wasn’t until 13 year old Maria captured the bugs and observed them that the lifecycle became clear and people started to change their beliefs. We recognized the stark contrast that, today, butterflies are likened to the transformation and converted heart we find through Christ. There are a few YouTube videos on this that also show beautiful butterfly transformations and we watched the Latter-day Kids video on this, Conversion.
It also worked out well because we were wrapping up the last of our Ancient History Study and we’re just coming off studying Rome where we learned about mosaics. The kids chose to do a butterfly garden stepping stone which turned out so cute and I love that we’ll be able to keep it in our yard. It’ll always serve as a beautiful memory of these precious days.
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