This post is couple of years old but as we head into our fourth week of Coronavirus lockdown, in April 2020, it’s a perfect isolation activity for families and children; indoor nature connection, without the need for a garden.

Are you looking for things to do with the kids in the holidays? Kids need nature so here’s a great activity to try in summer – butterfly growing at home!

It’s a favourite indoor kids nature activity, allowing a truly up-close insight into the fascinating life cycle of butterflies, witnessing metamorphosis in your own home. Wow!

Children LOVE it; watch their expressions when releasing the butterflies.

Image of close up of child's captivated face looking at sitting butterfly on child's hand

What Is Butterfly Growing?

Butterfly growing is literally facilitating the life cycle of real live caterpillars as they transform into butterflies before release into the wild. You simply buy a butterfly growing kit (link at bottom) with live caterpillars, special food and a habitat net.

Toddlers will learn how true The Hungry Caterpillar story really is and urban/suburban families with small (or no) gardens can participate too, as most of the ‘growing’ happens in the house – provided the butterflies are released near pollinating plants they should thrive.

Large kits are available for schools, and gardeners can use them for pollination in greenhouses and polytunnels.

If you’d like to know how to grow butterflies at home in the UK, read on.

Small Tortoiseshell
Red Admiral
Cabbage White
Small Blue
Peacock butterfly

These are butterflies I’ve photographed in our garden or the wild

How To Grow Butterflies

Butterfly growing is really simple and utterly entrancing and this mini tutorial will show you everything you need to know to buy a butterfly growing kit and transform your caterpillars into beautiful wild and free butterflies.

You will need:

  • a butterfly growing kit (see bottom of page)
  • a secure and safe shelf to store the butterfly net
  • patience

A friend bought our butterfly kit and we’ve successfully grown three lots of Painted Lady caterpillars as well as lending the habitat net for friends to use too.

What to do:

1. Buy Caterpillars

A lidded pot arrives in the post, (or box if you buy the full kit), filled with ‘sludge’ (caterpillar food) and 5 or 6 tiny live Painted Lady caterpillars. Watch them munching until they become chrysalides hanging from the lid of the cup.

Image close up of plastic lidded pot containing caterpillars, chrysalides and brown sludge caterpillar food

2. Move Chrysalides to Habitat Net

After a couple of days move the chrysalides and lid to the ‘chrysalis station’ and secure in your butterfly habitat net.

3. Meet Your Butterflies

Wait and watch as the chrysalides transform into butterflies!

4. Release Into the Wild

Feed with fruit and nectar then release into the wild after 2 or 3 days.

Image of girl in dress unzipping cylindrical butterfly net to release dark coloured butterfly

The whole process takes two to three weeks and is truly captivating.

If you’re lucky you might get to see the butterflies actually emerge (though ours always sneak out over night!)

The below photo is not long after emergence but we missed the actual event! Notice how soft and crumpled the butterfly wings are at first.

Image of orange and black butterfly looking squashed or crumpled with empty chrysalis behind

We grew 6 Tortoiseshell butterflies from caterpillars (wild-collected in an area of nettles in a park that were about to be strimmed). These hungry munchers ate a whole stem of fresh nettles every day in order to grow large enough to pupate so it was quite a responsibility! Thankfully all of them survived to be released into the wild.

I don’t recommend taking caterpillars from the wild as you not only need to know exactly what they eat (often just one plant for one species), you need to have a ready and fresh supply of it and this could mean removing protected wildflower species from the wild.

Black Tortoiseshell caterpillars on Nettle leaves
Cinnabar Moth Caterpillars on Ragwort

Do a Butterfly Survey

If you don’t want to grow butterflies but have lots in your area, why not encourage the kids to identify and record what they see in a garden butterfly survey with Butterfly Conservation?

Attract Butterflies to Your Garden

Alternatively, attract butterflies to your own garden by creating a wildlife area with wildflower seeds and pollinator(bee and butterfly)-friendly plants. You don’t need much space – we plant wildflower seeds in a recycled wheelbarrow container, which looks pretty as well as being great for conservation. Find out how to make one here: create a mini meadow in a wheelbarrow

Image of girl-with-blue-painted wheelbarrow-full-of-wildflowers

Kids Nature Activities

For more nature connection activities, check out the Kids of the Wild’s gardening pages and read our indoor nature activity suggestions. Try this simple coconut bird feeder tutorial too.

For ongoing isolation activities don’t forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and sign up to the website to receive the latest posts to your inbox.

Wild wishes that your hungry caterpillars turn into beautiful, brilliant butterflies!

Things To Do In The Holidays

For more indoor and outdoor activities for your kids in the holidays read: –

Home – 17 ways to connect with nature at home

Garden – go wild in the garden – 25 ways to connect with nature in your garden or yard

Outdoors – 30 super cool ideas for outdoor family fun

Why? – 11 reasons to get into the wild now

Get The Gear

Click images to find the best prices at Amazon.

BUTTERFLY GROWING KIT

CATERPILLAR REFILL GIFT VOUCHER
(to purchase caterpillars at the correct time of year)

CATERPILLAR REFILL CUP
(to purchase live caterpillars direct to your door)

HUNGRY CATERPILLAR BOARD BOOK

SEED BALL WILDFLOWERS

UK BUTTERFLY GUIDE