Project caterpillars

Do your children love bugs and critters they find in nature? A favorite nature project with kids is to raise a caterpillar to see what kind of butterfly it would turn into.

If your child finds a caterpillar outdoors pay close attention to what kind of leaves it is eating. Get a large jar and put the caterpillar in it along with a branch of whatever it was eating when you found it. Replace the leaves daily and watch the caterpillar grow. Be sure to have a long enough stick in the jar to stand upright and give the caterpillar a place to attach itself when it makes its chrysalis.

When the caterpillar has grown enough, it will turn into a pupa or chrysalis. Then the waiting begins. If it doesn’t hatch before autumn, it may be helpful to keep it in a cool room over the winter and expect to see it hatch in the spring, but keep it in a place where you can see it or you may miss the big event.

The long wait will eventually come to an end and the butterfly will emerge. It will pull itself out of the chrysalis and hang beneath it or climb up the stick in the jar while its wings stretch into shape and dry.

Tidbits of information that may prove to be helpful in this project:

• A wooly caterpillar will probably turn into a moth instead of a butterfly. Its chrysalis will be hidden inside a cocoon made of fibers.
• The Black Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillars feed on parsley, dill, and fennel. But they won’t eat cut parsley from the grocery store. A live parsley plant might supply enough food for one or two caterpillars, but too many caterpillars may eat the whole plant before they are ready to become chrysalises.
• Some crysalises bury themselves in the dirt, so if you don’t know what kind of caterpillar you have, you may want to add an inch or two of soil to the jar at the beginning.

Click here for  a link to a project I did with Black Swallowtail Butterflies.

The Creation, a Bible storybook for children by Janice D. Green