How to do more than just "raise caterpillars"??

[d.g.]

We have dill that has gone native in our yard and reseeds rather readily despite all my attempts to contain/eliminate it. The upside to this is that we can count on having tons of swallowtail caterpillars every year. Today, we found five of them in 3, maybe 4, different stages of development, and my boys are thrilled.

 

Problem is, we've raised caterpillars before. They still love it, but I'm getting bored. What else can we do (for free, preferrably, as we're out of school money at the moment) to make this project more fun for all of us?

[MomatHWTK]

You've taken them all the way to butterfly?

[d.g.]

Yup. Last time we had 4... 100% metamorphosis... didn't lose any. It's a good thing, too, because DS can be rather sensitive about losing his bug "friends".

[Kuovonne]

My DD is doing butterflies for the first time this year. We have a habitat on our kitchen counter. She's raised over half a dozen Monarchs and her first Swallowtail hatched today. Several of her caterpillars died before becoming adults.

 

To make the caterpillars more educational, I have her record caterpillar/pupa/butterfly data daily. She measure the length of each caterpillar, records the total number in each stage, and notes any major events. She also cleans and mists the habitat. Eventually I'll show her how to graph the data. She is learning a lot about responsibility. If I get bored with the caterpillars it doesn't really matter because DD is 100% responsible for taking care of them. She knows that if she doesn't care for them, they will die or be released into the wild.

 

We've also checked out several books about butterflies on from the library. Most of DD's school writing has also centered around caterpillars/butterflies recently.

[cmarango]

Maybe this blog post of mine will give you a few ideas. You could also compare moths and butterflies if you haven't yet done so.