Bugs to Flies

Jman watched his first caterpillar to butterfly transformation the past 2 weeks. If you have never actually watched this process I highly suggest it! I did it for the first time as a teacher. Its as exciting to watch as an adult as a kiddo.

Jman called them bugs and flies. Our caterpillars arrived in the mail and he was fascinated. We had to talk about not shaking them or opening it. He watched them eat and get fatter. Every morning he ran over to see his "bugs". We watched as they crawled to the top and began to form their chrysalis. He had a real hard time just watching and not touching once they did this. Well of course he did, he's 2.

Once they formed their chrysalis I had the not fun job of carefully moving them to the butterfly net. Jeannie I missed you at this point. I have to admit I taped them in and then later I saw they had fallen. Eek! I was so afraid I killed them. So I taped them back up again and prayed they still opened. It takes about 7-10 days for them to open into butterflies. So Jman started to lose interest. There wasn't much to watch. And I was kind of glad since I was afraid I killed them. :(. But on Sunday we came downstairs and 3 had opened! I was so excited. They were still drying so Jman couldn't see their wings and they weren't moving much yet. Then they started to fly around. Jman was thrilled by the "flies". I thought ok 3 out of 5 is good. But on Monday all of them had opened! Yay I'm not a butterfly murderer.

We watched them a couple days and on Thursday we went outside to release them. I thought they would all immediately fly away and Jman would hardly see it. But they didn't want to leave. One left and landed on his shoe and he was able to look real close at them. We actually had to force them to leave one by one. J got to touch them and really experience them. He told the flies bye! Although when we went in he asked for them so I don't think he realized they're really gone.

I'm glad we did it and plan to do it again and again. Hoping every year it becomes a little more interesting. And hopefully I wont drop them next time.