Butterflies

As a teacher I want my kids to be inquisitive about how the world works. I want them to see, learn, and experience everything. So, I was excited when my cousins gave her a butterfly nesting discovery thing. We ordered the caterpillars and watched as they grew. We discovered their cocoons and then transferred them to the netting. After a week or so, butterflies emerged and Kayla was excited to feed them fresh oranges. According to the literature, the butterflies life span is only 2-4 weeks so we knew we had to explain to Kayla that we needed to set them free. So, as a family we went out to our garden and let all the butterflies out. At first, only one flew away and the others remained in the netting. So Mike took each one out and set them on the plants in the garden. He even put one on Kayla's finger. She was afraid at first, but eventually warmed up to it. We left them there and eventually they all flew away.

Two days ago, Mike was cleaning the backyard and he and Kayla discovered one of the butterflies had returned to the garden. Unfortunately, that butterfly was "sleeping" or that's what we told Kayla. We'll talk about life and death another time.