Who would guess I’d be in love with raising insects?! Previously, we had raised ladybugs, an experience we loved. For our caterpillar to butterfly unit, we raised painted lady butterflies. It was amazingly easy and so much fun!
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Montessori Shelves with Caterpillar to Butterfly Themed Activities
Montessori Shelves to Caterpillar to Butterfly Themed Activities
These are the themed shelves at the beginning of our caterpillar to butterfly unit. We started with butterfly books and a variety of butterfly-themed activities using free printables. I also used our Montessori-inspired caterpillar to butterfly pack (subscriber freebie pack, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password … or check the bottom of your latest newsletter if you’re already a subscriber). You can read about all our activities in the post with free caterpillar to butterfly printables and Montessori-inspired activities.
Butterfly Life Cycle References
Montessori Shelf with Butterfly Life Cycle Materials and Butterfly Garden
Free Printable: Monarch Butterfly Life Cycle by Teaching Stuff Place at TPT (I printed these out two to a page to fit better on our tray and punched holes to connect the pages with a binder ring.)
Behind our monarch life cycle tray, I have the book A Butterfly’s Life Cycle. On the tray is a circular wooden life cycle tray that has 10 different sets of animals. I just have the butterfly set out for this unit. I also have the Safari Ltd. butterfly life cycle of a monarch butterfly figures.
The butterfly life cycle 4-part cards are from the Butterfly and Moth Unit Study from PurpleNestCreations on Etsy. (Note: If you purchased the 2023 Spring Mega Bundle, that unit study is included. So you’ll always have access to it!) I also printed out the painted lady information that’s on the wall in the photo from the Butterfly and Moth Unit Study.
You’ll also find butterfly life cycle activities in these posts:
- Montessori-Inspired Caterpillar-Butterfly Unit
- Montessori-Inspired Life Cycle Activities
- Butterfly Sensory Bin with Scavenger Hunt and Life Cycle Activities {Free Printables}
- Montessori-Inspired Spring Activities with Spielgaben {Free Printables}
- Free Oviparous Animal Printables and Montessori-Inspired Oviparous Animal Activities
Materials for Our Raising Painted Lady Butterflies Project
We’re raising painted lady butterflies!!! That’s the reason I have a /c/ font card with a painted lady caterpillar image and /ai/ for painted lady butterfly phonogram card. I printed out the painted lady information that’s on the wall in the earlier photo from the Butterfly and Moth Unit Study.
Butterfly Growing Kit (Butterfly Garden)
The other resources are all part of our Insect Lore Butterfly Garden (that my grandkids and I are crazy about)! Some kits include the live caterpillars, but I decided to use one with a voucher. It requires $8.95 for shipping and handling when you order the caterpillars. We live in California, so ours came super quickly from the Insect Lore company in California! I ordered them on a Tuesday morning, and they arrived Thursday morning!
Observing Painted Lady Caterpillars
All 5 caterpillars arrived live and thrived! Simple directions came in a little booklet as part of the butterfly garden. The directions were very easy to follow! You’ll also see “My Butterfly Observation Journal” on our shelf with a variety of activities that came with the butterfly garden.
Observing and Enjoying Caterpillars to Butterflies
Watch our Instagram reel to see the process and how much fun my grandkids had with the butterflies! They even named them.
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Raising butterflies was so simple, and we didn’t even need to feed them until they became butterflies. Then we could give them sugar water or fruit slices. We ended up placing both sugar water and an orange slice in the butterfly garden. Some butterflies ate the sugar water, and others sucked juice from the orange slice.
All 5 caterpillars became healthy butterflies and flew away at the end!
Our Experiences with a Balcony Butterfly Garden
It’s now July 7, 2023, and we recently started a butterfly garden on my balcony. My husband and I live in a 3-story home, and our balcony is on the 2nd story. I was excited to learn that butterflies can fly up to 25,000 feet, so a second-story balcony isn’t a problem at all!
We got native milkweed for monarch butterflies (important that it’s native locally and not tropical milkweed), rue, and a number of flowering plants that butterflies love. We also got three large plant lights for all our outdoor plants because our balcony has limited sunlight.
We didn’t even get all the plants repotted before this happened….
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Update: We raised 3 monarch butterflies from our native milkweed plant in 2023! This was our balcony garden near the end of summer 2023.
Our Butterfly and Hummingbird Balcony Garden
My grandkids especially love the Kids Potting Bench. Along with flowers and other plants on the shelves and in the splash tub (can be a sand and water tub), we even grew a few organic tomatoes on the trellis along with basil and parsley in the frame for vegetables. There are even more kids’ potting benches on Amazon this year, so it’s easy to find one that works well for any area.
Books for a Butterfly Theme
You’ll find some great butterfly books in this post:
Favorite Books for a Butterfly Theme
More Butterfly Resources
- Free Caterpillar to Butterfly Printables and Montessori-Inspired Activities
- Montessori-Inspired Caterpillar-Butterfly Unit
- Montessori-Inspired Life Cycle Activities
- Free Butterfly Printables and Montessori-Inspired Butterfly Activities
- Free Butterfly Printables and Montessori-Inspired Butterfly Letter Activities
- Free Butterfly Cutting Strips (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
- Butterfly Sensory Bin with Scavenger Hunt and Life Cycle Activities {Free Printables}
- Montessori-Inspired Spring Activities with Spielgaben {Free Printables}
- Free Butterfly Do-a-Dot Printable (Montessori-Inspired Instant Download)
- Free Oviparous Animal Printables and Montessori-Inspired Oviparous Animal Activities
- Caterpillar-Butterfly Unit Study Pinterest Board
Montessori-Inspired Caterpillar to Butterfly Pack for DIY Cards and Counters, Number or Letter Matching, Number or Letter Basket, Bead Bar Work, Hands-on Math Operations, Number or Letter Salt/Sand Writing Tray, Letter Tracing, DIY Movable Alphabet, and Creative Writing (subscriber freebie, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password – or check your inbox if you’re already a subscriber).
Montessori-Inspired Butterfly Pack for DIY Cards and Counters, Number or Letter Matching, Number or Letter Basket, Number or Letter Salt/Sand Writing Tray, Letter Tracing, and DIY Movable Alphabet (subscriber freebie, so just sign up for my email to get the link and password – or check your inbox if you’re already a subscriber). This is from our earlier unit with Free Butterfly Printables and Montessori-Inspired Butterfly Letter Activities. It’s still available in our resource library.
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