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We were so excited to do this butterfly unit, and when our caterpillars arrived, we paused everything to really dig into the life (and care!) of a butterfly. We had an introduction in kindergarten, but Atlas wanted to “hatch” his own and observe whenever he wanted.

Let me show you every thing we used for our two week exploration of moths and butterflies:

this caterpillar to butterfly kit was a simple online purchase.
for $4 you can get the “home school” stem activity download, which we did and enjoyed
we purchased a taxidermy male moth moth to get up close and learn.
there was an $8 online “moth and butterfly” class here that taught the difference between the two. the link is a $20 credit (non-subscription), so you can get the class for free!
if you want to add a book, this butterfly and month book does a good job showing clear photos and differences between the two.
this blogger had a free download to the caterpillar/butterfly project below. atlas loved it.
if you are looking for a month crafting project, this one we did turned out great and is still hanging up in our house. just a printer, glue, and leaves and sticks is needed.
vintage butterfly and moth print outs (pick your faves on google images)

We received our butterfly hatching kit in the mail and it came with a certificate inside to redeem for caterpillars. We did that process online and paid $2.99 for shipping, otherwise they were included with the original kit. We didn’t know when they would show up, so the day they came was such a fun surprise. The come in this “cup of mud” looking thing, and it gets pretty gross in there! Atlas named them all and we patiently waited and journaled each day their position. The little “cup journal” was part of the additional $3.99 workbook.

The whole process was about two weeks. We received 5 caterpillars and they transformed into five butterflies, but one of them was really special. You could tell the butterflies wanted to FLY and get out of their “cage”, well all but one did. One just wanted to hang out with Atlas. Atlas changed his name from “roof climber” to “Atlas best friend butterfly” and these two hung out for three days and it was painfully cute. The butterfly would sit on stuffed animals, robots, a pencil…and just hang out. It was kind of crazy. He liked to sit at Atlas’s finger and was not at all shy. When it came time to let him go, he hung out on a tree leaf for about 45 minutes, then went on his way, over our roof and gone. A few hours later, he was back flying in our back yard. A little less than we week later we saw him fly out of our tree, and that was the last we saw of him. This was the most fun part of the unit, I can’t lie.

How we framed our Two Weeks

Start the day with your journal drawing of where the caterpillars/butterflies are
If weather permits, take a sketch pad out into nature and try to find and draw moths and butterflies and begin to see their differences. Look at wings and antennas.
Do one new thing each day related to the topic. One day is the online class, another a few worksheets, another an art project, another some educational videos, and so on.
Atlas was responsible for making sure the butterflies got sugar water every day.
When working on handwriting, math, and other developing skills, we turned the sentences he needed to copy into silly moth and butterfly sentences. The workbook had some “butterfly math” we expanded on as well.

Here is a link to the kit we used to order and house the butterflies.

Check out my pinterest board for kid’s activities for some more at home activities to do with your little and also check out our 50 yoga for little videos we just did!

Hope everyone is great and having fun learning at home.

Much love,

Lana

PS After I wrote this, the butterfly came back! We couldn’t believe it. He hung out for about 15 minutes, snacked on our strawberry plant, and then flew away!