Raising Butterflies

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Raising butterflies can be a great experience for grade school aged children. Monarchs are one of the most ideal to raise at home. You can make this into a great learning experience where they can be hands on. You can help to teach them about the different life stages of a butterfly.

The first thing you really should do is purchase a book about monarchs this will help your children begin to understand their life cycle. Monarchs will lay their eggs on common milkweed and use it as well for a food source. Milkweed  can be planted in your butterfly garden as a great way to attact monarchs, along with collecting eggs. Monarch eggs look like a tiny white football often on the underside of milkweed leaves. To collect them, simply use a scissors to remove the leaf it is attached to. Once you have your clippings, you can place them in a tupperware container.

This can make a good temporary home for the eggs. It wont take long before they hatch and turn into tiny caterpillars. Make sure to keep supplying new milkweed leaves every few days. Old leaves mold before too long, so make sure to remove them. As your caterpillar grows, you will need to move him and the milkweed into a butterfly net house. This is a great place to house your caterpillar until it completes its change to a butterfly. Just make sure that when you open the top you are very careful of any chrysalis that may on the top.

A monarch's chrysalis will be bright green, and will remain that color until the moment before the butterfly immerges. When the butterfly is within 24 to 48 hours of emerging the chrysalis turns clear so you can actually see the monarch wings.

The butterfly book is a great resource to learn more about housing butterflies and attracting them around your house. This can be a great learning resource for your children.