Oh my goodness—we just let our butterflies go free!
I’m not sure who was more excited, the children or the adults. We invited our neighbors over to watch the release of two butterflies we watched hatch from caterpillars over a month period. There’s nothing quite like watching the life cycle of a living thing. Just wow.
We had gone to The Butterfly Place not far from our house to learn more about butterflies. It was there that we bought two caterpillars that would turn into painted lady butterflies. During the process, we took out a dozen fiction and non-fiction books from the library to learn more about the butterfly life cycle.
Two of our favorite butterfly books were:
From Caterpillar to Butterfly (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science)
by Deborah Heiligman and Bari Weissman
This book is great because it follows a group of children who are watching the life cycle of a painted lady butterfly in their classroom.
My, Oh My–A Butterfly!: All About Butterflies (Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library)
by Tish Rabe, Aristides Ruiz and Joe Mathieu
This is a fun book from the Cat in the Hat series—a great way to learn about butterflies through rhyming text.
If you can get some caterpillars to hatch, we highly recommend it. The project is something fun for the whole family or in your classroom. Alternatively, if you’re looking to add movement to your butterfly learning experiences, check out these five yoga poses below.
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Learn about the Life Cycle of a Butterfly through Yoga Poses:
Learning about the life cycle of a butterfly is a great way to teach children how animals go through changes in appearance, just like the seasons change. Also, animals and other living things grow, change, reproduce, and need food and water to survive.
Below are five yoga poses reflecting the different stages of a growing butterfly – to learn through movement!
1. Pretend to be an egg.
How to practice Child’s Pose: Sit on your heels, slowly bring your forehead down to rest on the floor in front of your knees, rest your arms down alongside your body, and take a few deep breaths. Pretend to be a caterpillar egg on a leaf.
2. Pretend to be a caterpillar.
How to practice Cobra Pose: Lie on your tummy and place your palms flat next to your shoulders. Pressing into your hands, lift your head and shoulders off the ground. Pretend to be a caterpillar on a little leaf.
3. Pretend to be a pupa.
How to practice Hare Pose: Come to sitting on your heels in a Hero Pose. Slowly place your head on the ground in front of you. Take your hands back alongside your body. Then lift your buttocks, being careful to not put too much pressure on your head. Pretend to be a pupa hanging from a leaf.
4. Pretend to be an emerging butterfly.
How to practice Standing Forward Bend: Come to standing tall with your legs hip-width apart, feet facing forward, and straighten your arms alongside your body. Bend your upper body and reach for your toes. Pretend to be a butterfly starting to emerge from the pupa.
5. Pretend to be an adult butterfly.
How to practice Warrior 3 Pose: Stand on one leg. Extend the other leg behind you, flexing your foot. Bend your torso forward and take your arms out to the sides. Flap your arms like the wings of an adult butterfly. Switch sides and repeat the steps.
What kind of butterfly did you grow into during your life cycle?
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