Insect Lore Butterfly Garden Toy from Insect Lore

Insect Lore Butterfly Garden

from Insect Lore

Enlarge Image See More Details		Model No: 1010 Customer Rating: Availability: dispatched within 24 hours Minimum Age: 4 years Category: Toy
		Children Store Price: £14.99

PRODUCT DESCRIPTION

This butterfly farm kit allows children to watch the life-cycle of a butterfly close up. The children's butterfly kit comes with lots of information on metamorphosis and butterflies. When you receive the kids butterfly set, you can send off for 5 live caterpillars. Watch your caterpillars in their own butterfly garden and then set them free.

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CUSTOMER REVIEWS

Customer rating stars Fab Posted: 07 March 2010
Actually bought as engagement present for sister-in-law to be as she loves butterflies, she loved it and is going to use it once they get into their house. Thankyou

Customer rating stars An experience Posted: 03 January 2010
The Butterfly garden is basically a small pop up cylinder with a zipped lid. You also get a plastic pipette and an instruction leaflet and a postcard with a code number and details of how to get your actual butterflies. You can post off to get them or order online. The caterpillars are only available between mid or the end of February and Beginning of October (I suppose it would be too cold to release them) so if you buy this gift as a christmas present the recipient won't be able to use it until at least March. You also have to pay postage for the caterpillars which I thought was a bit of a cheek given the price of the kit (I think it was #2.50), you also may have to wait (when I ordered mine at the beginning of May the site said there had been high demand and that my caterpillars may take up to two weeks to be dispatched)
The baby (tiny,tiny) little caterpillars arrived through the normal post in a cardboard box and were packed in a plastic tub with a couple centimetres of what looked like fudge. We did need to be in as the box wouldn't have fitted through the letterbox. Basically you keep the plastic carton somewhere fairly warm (consistent temperature) and watch the five babies you get (3 are guaranteed to hatch into butterflies)eat the fudge, poo and get very fat. The caterpillars- are not cute little green ones but brown sluglike ones - my older daughters thought they looked revolting but my son loved them and couldn't wait for them to cocoon.
One caterpillar was a lot smaller than the others so we hadn't high hopes for his survival. After about a week the caterpillars cocooned- they climb to the top of the carton where there is a piece of filter paper and they attach upside down by a little thread and cocoon themselves. My son loved this - but you do have to be a little gentle and not shake the jar and disturb them at this point.
Once they have all cocooned (one of ours only half cocooned and the little one managed it three days after the others)you transfer the paper disc to your pop up "garden", safety pinning it to the side gently. You can decorate the garden with twigs and leaves and flowers and wait for the butterflies to emerge. We didn't actually manage to see any of the butterflies emerge, but all four did. They left a slightly alarming red stain all along the side of the container when they emerged - which again my older kids thought was just disgusting . Once hatched your child can have fun making a sugar and water syrup for the butterflies to eat or providing them with cut oranges. They can use the pipette to put sugar syrup on the flowers and leaves they have decorated the garden with and watch them flutter around for a few days before you decide to release them.

My son had a lovely time with this set and took many photos during his caterpillars development.

I thought for what you got the kit was overpriced, but my son did really like it. It would be great for a school group or sibling group too - although you do have to make sure that you book the caterpillars to arrive when you will be at home and not on holiday like a friend did!

Customer rating stars Great Product Posted: 10 August 2009
This is a fab product for children between the ages of 4 - 10

They find it fascinating and are constantly asking questions.

Customer rating stars Fascinating Posted: 15 July 2009
This was a fantastic purchase for my class of reception children - all the caterpillars turned into butterflies - it was like magic for us all! Well worth investing in. I would just say though that the offer of purchasing more caterpillars at five times the original price was a little steep!

Customer rating stars Great educational experience. Posted: 18 June 2009
I ordered this for my Year 4 class to tie in (vaguely) with our science topic habitats.
From the moment the caterpillars arrived, they've been fascinated. They've named them and watched them grow and turn into chyrsallis. Two of them have formed on the floor of the tub, while the rest are at the top of the pot. i'm not sure if they'll all hatch. Hopefully they'll come out in the next few days.