The big release date - butterflies that is

We recently completed our My Father's World From A to Z: A Complete Kindergarten Curriculum for this year (which we really enjoyed, by the way).  Earlier in the year, we did the lesson on butterflies and one of the activities was to observe the life cycle of the butterfly with our  Live Butterfly Garden Butterfly Kit.  Because it was still pretty cold out when we did this lesson, we waited to order our caterpillars until a couple of weeks ago.

The girls were so excited to get the caterpillars in the mail.  We were all amazed at how tiny they were, but that didn't last long.  They quadrupled in size in a matter of a couple of days and then began to make their chrysalises (cocoons).  We thought the process would take two weeks for the butterflies to emerge, but one morning our four year old came running out of our school room saying: "we have butterflies, we have butterflies, we have butterflies!!"  We were all so excited to see the beautiful creature that had developed.  

We fed them and enjoyed watching them for three days and then we knew it was time to let them go.  As soon as we took the little habitat outside, they were fluttering like crazy.  It's like they knew life was waiting. 

The girls said their goodbyes and five little butterflies went their separate ways.  It was a lot of fun looking for them throughout the yard.  We found them fluttering around and landing on different plants and trees.    

This was a really fun and special project to do with the girls.  I especially liked the "Words to Remember" section that go along with this B for Butterfly lesson:

God can make me new.