The Release

We had three busy butterflies by Staurday morning... since Thursday we had been sticking flowers (with sugar water drops) and slices of oranges in the habitat to feed the butterflies. But none of us had seen the butterflies actually eat...

So we decided to release them sooner rather than waiting any longer. At first the kids wnated to keep them... as expected. When we gave them the scenerio of being stuck in a cage versus flying in the sky, they agreed that we should release them:)

So Saturday morning before breakfast and still in our PJs, we went outside to release them:)

We gave Christopher the job of sticking in his hand to wave the butterflies out... a job he eagerly agreed to do:)

As each flew away we watched it fly up into the sky! The butterflies were gone within seconds. It would have been neat to have a few that stayed nearby to eat and play in our huge Lantana bush... but they didn't:(

One did stay on one of our window eves for a little bit. We think Christopher must have touched his wings, but he flew up there and was gone later when we checked.

I know the kids really enjoyed the project. I think it's great to hear my 2 yr old talk about how the little caterpillars turned into chrysalises and then came out as butterflies.... I'm sure she could have gotten it from a book, but how amazing it was to see it happening right in front of us.

Here are links back through our journey:

Getting the Caterpillars

Going into their Chrysalises

Emerging from the Chrysalis