Little House in the Village

Monarchs--A Unit Study--The set up.

In the spring, two of my friends raised Painted Lady butterflies. I had not bought my own because Peanut and I were planning on raising monarchs this Fall. Well they were more than generous in supplying us with some of their caterpillars so that Peanut would not feel left out. Praise God \o/ \o/ for the amazing friends He has given me because we had a wonderful experience.

Well, last night we went to pick up our butterfly raising kits from the Insectarium de Montreal, and wow! We paid for this kit, but in it we received a pop-up type of tent for raising our caterpillars, a poster showing each of the stages of the growth and life cycle, a teaching manual, caterpillars (minimum of 5, possibility of more if the staff had miscounted), and a milk weed plant (live in a pot)  (grown at the Botannical Gardens for just this purpose). Oh, and tags to tag our butterflies on release. I believe we will also receive a certificate of participation once we forward our final information to the Insectarium.

We also purchased a monarch migration game (with gameboards to share because these kits are geared to schools and not homeschoolers). This year, the Insectarium sold 900 kits for monarch raise and release--remember, there is a minimum of 5 caterpillars per kit =)

Here are a few photos I took this morning...

Here is our container of caterpillars. You can see where they have been eating. Imagine, we only know for sure that there are caterpillars in this container because of the telltale holes chewed in the leaves.

Here is a close up of the flowers of this milkweed plant.

Here is this poor plant all squished into the tent. The stems are surprisingly flexible. At first I was worried they would snap I tucked them into the tent.

Here is a shot of at least two caterpillars. One is green only, but the second you can begin to see the telltale yellow/black stripes.

Here is the final shot with everything tucked into the tent.

Phew...it wasn't difficult, but I have to confess to being just a bit nervous and tense because I have never done this before and I so want it all to go well.

Shari