Insect Lore Butterfly Garden

My 3 year old daughter loved this and we did too! Her favourite story at the time was The very hungry caterpillar so she knew what to expect. We bought her a proper magnifying glass so she could see the caterpillars as they grew (they are very tiny when they arrive). I was annoyed that I failed to see one single butterfly hatch and missed all 5. I sat and watched one for over 30 mins as I could tell it was imminent but was distracted and by the time I'd looked back I saw that I'd missed it! This is not the fault of the butterfly garden though! If you look around the internet you can buy more caterpillars another year and use the garden again. So it's great value for money and gets 6 stars for educational value.

Absolutely superb present for the kids that amazes them and provides daily interest as they watch the tiny caterpillars transform into butterflies over a few weeks.

The kit contains a colourful pop-up enclosure with a feeding pipette and a coded voucher to redeem for a couple of quid for 4 or 5 tiny caterpillars. They can't put live caterpillars in the box of course. The voucher must either be sent by post or the code used on the Insect Lore website. I went for the web option used PayPal and effortlessly received the caterpillars within 2 days. You are sent a small clear plastic jar with half a cm of some kind of fatty substance at the bottom. The caterpillars remain in the jar (it has tiny air holes) eating away at the fatty food and growing at an incredible pace into large, black hairy ones. No additional feeding is necessary whilst in the jar and the lid must remain tight until they form chrysalises and hang from the paper that is on the underside of the sealed lid. Then, the paper from which they all dangle must be carefully removed with them attached and pinned into the enclosure and left undisturbed until they hatch into butterflies. Place in some flowers from the garden and a bit of orange, banana or other fruit, drip some sugar water via the pipette and they'll be very happy indeed. Three days later, release into the outside provided the weather is warm.

The kids were fascinated by the whole process, ran downstairs in the mornings to see the progress and took delight in observing nature so closely. I totally recommend this for any kids say aged 4+. You'll be happy to see the pleasure they get from it and somewhat chuffed as a parent (or relative) to have bought something unusual and educational.

And don't worry if the caterpillars hardly move or even stay completely still for some time - that's normal. They probably need all the rest they can get - as butterflies they will cover over 3,000 miles in the 5 weeks they live!

The Butterfly garden is basically a small pop up cylinder with a zipped lid. You also get a plastic pipette and an instruction leaflet and a postcard with a code number and details of how to get your actual butterflies. You can post off to get them or order online. The caterpillars are only available between mid or the end of February and Beginning of October (I suppose it would be too cold to release them) so if you buy this gift as a christmas present the recipient won't be able to use it until at least March. You also have to pay postage for the caterpillars which I thought was a bit of a cheek given the price of the kit (I think it was #2.50), you also may have to wait (when I ordered mine at the beginning of May the site said there had been high demand and that my caterpillars may take up to two weeks to be dispatched)
The baby (tiny,tiny) little caterpillars arrived through the normal post in a cardboard box and were packed in a plastic tub with a couple centimetres of what looked like fudge. We did need to be in as the box wouldn't have fitted through the letterbox. Basically you keep the plastic carton somewhere fairly warm (consistent temperature) and watch the five babies you get (3 are guaranteed to hatch into butterflies)eat the fudge, poo and get very fat. The caterpillars- are not cute little green ones but brown sluglike ones - my older daughters thought they looked revolting but my son loved them and couldn't wait for them to cocoon.
One caterpillar was a lot smaller than the others so we hadn't high hopes for his survival. After about a week the caterpillars cocooned- they climb to the top of the carton where there is a piece of filter paper and they attach upside down by a little thread and cocoon themselves. My son loved this - but you do have to be a little gentle and not shake the jar and disturb them at this point.
Once they have all cocooned (one of ours only half cocooned and the little one managed it three days after the others)you transfer the paper disc to your pop up "garden", safety pinning it to the side gently. You can decorate the garden with twigs and leaves and flowers and wait for the butterflies to emerge. We didn't actually manage to see any of the butterflies emerge, but all four did. They left a slightly alarming red stain all along the side of the container when they emerged - which again my older kids thought was just disgusting . Once hatched your child can have fun making a sugar and water syrup for the butterflies to eat or providing them with cut oranges. They can use the pipette to put sugar syrup on the flowers and leaves they have decorated the garden with and watch them flutter around for a few days before you decide to release them.

My son had a lovely time with this set and took many photos during his caterpillars development.

I thought for what you got the kit was overpriced, but my son did really like it. It would be great for a school group or sibling group too - although you do have to make sure that you book the caterpillars to arrive when you will be at home and not on holiday like a friend did!