Every child has read ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ but have you ever witnessed the wonders of caterpillars transforming into beautiful butterflies? I’ve never witnessed it before… until now.
I firmly believe that education doesn’t have to be boring and learning can actually be really fun! Brightminds is an online store that specialises in STEAM toys – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & crafts, and Math toys. So whether you’re looking for arts project or a multiplayer board game, there’s something on the website that will meet your needs.
The Brightminds Butterfly Garden Kit comes with a voucher to claim live caterpillars, which makes it a perfect complete gift for curious little minds. Just remember to use the voucher to order your live caterpillars as soon as your butterfly garden kit arrives.
The Butterfly kit is fun and really educational. It gave my inquisitive kids the opportunity to watch close up the miracle of ‘Metamorphosis’. It was also quite fun to see a caterpillar up close!
The kit comes with everything you need and your caterpillars (once ordered separately) will arrive in a clear plastic cup with all of the nutritious food they need. Make sure to not open the lid of the cup and place it out of direct sunlight to avoid moisture (and potentially mould) being introduced into the cup as this will make the caterpillars sick. The Butterfly Garden Habitat is a reusable, cylindrical mesh container perfect for up close butterfly viewing, and when not in use you can fold it flat for easy storage.
As it’s summer time and we’ve been lucky to have really warm weather, our caterpillars transformed into butterflies pretty quickly. The whole process from start to finish was just under 3 weeks – about 5 days before they turned into the chrysalides and a further 4 days before the first butterfly arrived. We had one really tiny caterpillar which was a day later than all other caterpillars to turn into a butterfly but I am so glad we didn’t have any that died in the process or get injured which can happen.
The handy little booklet that comes with the kit explains everything you need to know about them and their different stages and there will be a period when they need peace and quiet for a few days. 4 out of 5 of our chrysalides had fallen to the bottom of the cup but it was not an issue as I left them there then scooped them onto a towel and place into the habitat after 3 days.
We really enjoyed releasing our painted lady butterflies at Greenwich Park where there’s a lot of flora for the butterflies to feast on. In the habitat, we fed our butterflies the nectar mix it came with as well as sliced oranges and over-ripened bananas… the bananas were their favourite!
It was so lovely to see them fly away after caring for them, the kids didn’t get too sentimental but they were so joyous when the butterflies flew out and flew away. When they were in their habitat, the kids were able to get up close to them and touch them through the mesh which was a really lovely experience for them, something they’ll never forget.
We may order another kit next year to do this all again! 🙂
NB. We were kindly sent a complimentary Brightminds Butterfly Kit in collaboration for this blog post review. All words, opinions and photos are my own and should not be reused without my consent.
Manny.Wandering | The Wandering Mother Blog 
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