Over the last few years, I've soaked up a great deal of information about nature with my family and my students. I've also enjoyed engaging all of these people I more experiential, hands-on activities.
One of the best ways to do this has been through raising butterflies, though I must admit, the process wasn't exactly intentional. While I did order and plant milkweed plans on my school's trail, some hitchhiking seeds must have made it to my house as before long, our front garden normally inhabited by hostas had shared some space for some new milkweed. The next year, more space was taken up by milkweed.
Naturally, now that we had milkweed, we needed to look for signs of the life cycle of monarchs. It didn't take long to find some.
Eggs. Caterpillars. Chrysalides. Butterflies. Repeat.
The girls thoroughly enjoy checking for caterpillars, adding milkweed leaves, providing status updates to anyone around, and of course, releasing adults.
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