Butterfly Case STEM Observation

Bought for my 5yo and 2yo sons. They loved it! I was worried based on some reviews that I wouldn't get many butterflies. But I saw one review that stated they cleaned the Caterpillar poo off of the food so they all were able to get plenty to eat. I think that's what did it! We are waiting on our last butterfly to emerge! So far we have 11 healthy butterflies!

My 3 youngest, 4, 6, and 7, loved, loved, LOVED this kit. We actually got 12 caterpillars instead of 10, and 11 out of the 12 made it to butterflies! We live up in the Rockies at 9600 feet and the caterpillars were already moving around about 20 minutes after we opened the box. My girls loved watching them go from teeny tiny caterpillars to large ones to chrysalids to butterflies over several weeks. And they are now happily enjoying their release as the butterflies slowly make their way from the inside of our house to the outdoors. I'm buying a refill as this was one of the best purchases I've ever made!

One caveat: the caterpillars poop -a lot. It definitely looks gross but it doesn't smell, and if you have kids poop shouldn't gross you out too much, but if it does, well, be aware. Tbh, I made my husband move the chrysalids to the enclosure so I didn't have to touch it, lol...

For the first few days they were not moving much, and I was worried they were dead. However I noticed they did seem a little bigger despite hardly moving.
Each cup had 6 caterpillars. We have a total of 9 out of 12 that developed into butterflies. One cup all 6 turned into butterflies. The other cup only 4 out of the 6 turned, but one butterfly was unable to move and open its wings so it died. We ended up with 3 out of 6 from that cup.
1) All of the webbing! I had one caterpillar stuck on the bottom of the cup because it could not move due to the webbing. It formed into a chrysalis on the bottom of the container, but it is not going to form into a butterfly. The other butterflies that made it have been out for about 2 days now. This chrysalis has turned black. The webbing also made it difficult to remove the lid to place it into the butterfly habitat. I could hear the webbing ripping from the lid as I pulled it off. I was worried I would lose some of the chrysalises in the process.
The first butterfly that emerged (which we were super excited for) was so wrapped up in the webbing it got stuck and was unable to fully open its wings or move around.
2) All of the red liquid from the butterflies! It got everywhere. the cage got stuck to the table. My table had the liquid all over. I wish the instruction booklet had suggested putting something under the cage if you were going to place it on a table. The butterflies got it on the bottom, all over the sides, and all over my table.

This was from the Easter Bunny.
It actually arrived sooner than expected
We got the kit WITH the caterpillars. Just so you know....in the 4 days prior to Easter those Caterpillars more the DOUBLED in size.
I know they grow quickly, but didn't expect it to be that quick. It's been 2 days since the kids received this and the caterpillars are already starting to hang from the lid to start turning into chrysalis. So keep that in mind if you are getting this as a gift, you may want to opt for the one with the voucher to order the caterpillars at a later date.
NOTE: some of the things that people said about the information not being up to date, I believe has since been fixed. The directions and the info. book were informative on all the items that came in this kit.
So far things are looking good, we are excited to see the butterflies in a couple weeks!

We really enjoyed this kit! The kids looked forward to waking up every morning and seeing how the caterpillars had grown and watching them hatch was really delightful.

We received 6 caterpillars in each jar. 1 was unable to remove himself from his chrysalis and another hatched with malformed wings so we will be allowing that one to live out his days here with us.

This was a wonderful experience for the children and a great way for them to see the life cycle of butterflies for themselves. We will definitely be purchasing more caterpillars next year because we have decided to make this a summer tradition!