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I didn’t know you could get a butterfly growing kit until one of the school mums got one – and from that moment I was totally in awe. What a great way to learn about how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly!
I was sent this kit for the purpose of the review but all opinions are my own. This set was from the Bright Minds website.
Insect Lore Butterfly Garden Review
Insect Lore’s butterfly garden is a habitat made with very clear mesh, which allows you to see up-close exactly what’s going on. The kit includes everything you need for a growing caterpillars to butterflies, except for living caterpillars. Instead, there is a voucher to redeem your caterpillars so that they arrive at a time you’re able care for them properly.
Inside the Insect Lore Butterfly Garden Box
The box contains the butterfly garden net for when the butterflies hatch, a voucher for caterpillars, and the instruction booklet which includes some fun facts too.
Before you can begin, you need to order your butterflies.
Caterpillar to butterfly growing kit
To redeem the voucher, you need to pick a day for the caterpillars to be posted to you and pay a small delivery fee.
You’ll receive 3-5 caterpillars in a pot that contains food for them to eat. When the post arrives, you need to open the package ASAP. The caterpillars spend the next few days eating the food in their container and getting fat ready for them to become chrysalises.
The caterpillars start of really small but grow to ten times their size really quickly. The webbing inside the pot it quite normal. We had 5 caterpillars, but by the end we only had 4. We’re not sure what happened but we suspect one caterpillar was less friendly than the rest!
Growing a butterfly
When the caterpillars become chrysalises, you have to wait a couple of days then transfer them from the pot to the net. This means they can hatch safely with lots of space. You have to feed the newly hatched butterflies before you set them free – we fed them fruit.
After a couple of days, the butterflies are ready to be released so all you have to do is take the net outdoors and undo the top. This lets them fly off when they’re ready.
What I love about this set is that it can be used over and over again. When you’ve set your butterflies free, you can just buy more, so it’s not a one-hit-wonder. I think we’ll buy some more caterpillars to grow into butterflies next year too.
I mostly did this to show my son the lifecycles, but my daughter was quite interested. Next summer she’ll be a little older and ready to go to nursery so it’ll be nice to get her involved too.
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