My son (age 5) got live butterfly garden from his grandparents for Christmas and it has been terrific fun for all of us. The first set of ten caterpillars grew visibly day-by-day, then pupated and emerged as butterflies in a few weeks. There is a lot of great information about painted lady and other butterfly species online and having this project got my son very interested in how a caterpillar turns into a butterfly so soon I found myself showing him multi-colored pictures of imaginal discs (the larval structures that produce the butterfly wing, leg etc. during metamorphosis) online at websites I found–a great way to get him interested in developmental biology.
The first time we talked about this he decided they were actually “magical discs”, given what these groups of cells can do…the whole process has been very entertaining for the whole family…. It is also really fun to have butterflies flitting around and caterpillars growing in the pavilion in the kitchen when it is gray and wintery outside. Read More here….