How to Grow a Butterfly – Homeschool Science Project

I’m not a bug lover, or even an animal lover to be perfectly honest, so I’ve never had one of those jars with leaves and grass and some sort of insect growing inside. But I was visiting my nature-loving friend a couple weeks ago, and I noticed a beautiful purple flower in her yard. True to her nature-loving personality, she filled me in on the details of the plant and the insects who call it home. When I say insects, I mean worms – hundreds of them! They were all over the underside of the leaves. She told me how the worms eat the leaves until they are old enough to form a chrysalis, and much to our surprise, we found a chrysalis! It was ugly, to say the least, and I found it hard to imagine that anything beautiful would ever come from it. That’s when I saw the twinkle in her eyes. She said, “You should take it home and let it be a homeschool science project.” To which I replied, “Ew, I don’t think so!” She explained that it wasn’t something that I’d have to touch or really even do anything with – just put it somewhere safe and dry, and the butterfly would show up a couple weeks later.

Well, it’s two weeks later, and just like clockwork the butterfly showed up! Not just any butterfly. The most beautiful butterfly on earth! I suppose that could be a somewhat biased opinion, but still, it was very beautiful. We took lots of pictures, then released it. Fortunately, we found a plant just like the one at my friend’s house. As I moved it near the vine, it made a dash for the beautiful purple flower, and that’s where this picture was made.

So, that’s how you grow a butterfly! I must have some kind of butterfly growing gift! Who knew?

Before you panic and think that I probably shouldn’t be homeschooling if I believe we actually grew a butterfly, I will confess – I don’t really think we “grew” a butterfly, we just watched the metamorphic change from worm to chrysalis to beautiful butterfly – and it was WAY cool! Now, I wonder what else we can grow in our jar?

By the way, Blue Thistle Books is having a back-to-school giveaway and sale. Now is the time to pick up those last few items for the new school year. You can also enter to win a Cuisinart ice cream maker while you’re there!

Keeping it real,