February 24, 2010

Animal Planet meets Discovery Science

Nate and I like to do puzzles together after dinner. Well actually Nate likes to do puzzles, and I just like to spend time with Nate. Tonight's puzzle was a giant butterfly.
"Mommy, how are butterflies made?"
Better that then babies. I had to think for second just to be sure I didn't confuse them with worms.
"Well, they grow from caterpillars and then they turn into butterflies."
So then I got the brilliant idea to grow our OWN butterflies.
"Hey Nate let's see if we can buy caterpillars online."

I'm no science teacher but I'm sure this is something I've seen at the Discovery Store. How hard can it be, grab a few caterpillars throw them in a net and feed them some leaves. Nate thought this was a fantastic idea. Granted it's not hard to get a 4 year old excited, but that's why I LOVE this age. He can get behind any cockamany idea.

We ran to the internet and searched for "Grow your own Butterflies". Sure enough we found 20 different choices. Now if I'm going to grow my own butterflies I need to guarantee I'm not going to get some dull moths. We did a little research and if anybody ever questions the value of marketing, I'm here to tell you it works. The bold red font, "No catching required!" SOLD.  In 3-5 business days we'll be on our way to butterfly bliss.

We then had to discuss how they would be delivered. I told him the caterpillars would come in the mail. Since our mail gets delivered into a slot in our garage door, Nate was concerned.
"But mom, if the mailman delivers our caterpillars they will crawl around the garage because we don't have a mailbox."
I had to laugh at the thought of the mailman hand delivering 5 tiny caterpillars into our mail slot.
"I'm pretty sure they come in a box."
At least I hope so....because I'm not about to chase 5 catepillars around our garage. More food for the rats. That's another blog.

I'll keep you all posted on our 3 week metamorphosis. I'm sure I just bought $20 bucks of pure entertainment.....

3 comments:

Julie Johnson said...

Lucky Nate! The boys both did that experiment in 2nd grade. We were the lucky winners of the butterfly box at the end of the class lesson. It was really cool until we had to let them go...

Natalie Chilson said...

I'll be waiting to hear the result. I have that exact box in the top of Connors closet. I just haven't ordered the caterpillars yet.

Anne said...

Hope the come alive- that's a whole other lesson!