Painted Lady Butterflies

     In our Living Things science unit, we discussed what living things need.  We made a chart and talked about the differences between plant needs vs. animal needs.  I introduced the students to our classroom cup of caterpillars and tasked them with making observations about them.  We recorded the date and predicted when they would turn into chrysalises.  Once the caterpillars were all transformed into chrysalises, they were left to harden and transferred to our butterfly net.  Now we wait for the final transformation into beautiful painted lady butterflies. 

We incorporated loose part butterflies after reading about butterflies and watching a short video about painted lady butterflies.