by Alejandra Betancourt

Created on: July 13, 2009   Last Updated: July 16, 2009

Are you like me and think bugs are gross and fascinating at the same time? Children have a different mentality as they will get into anything or everything that is disgusting. I constantly found my 3yrs old daughter picking up crickets and caterpillars. She shows them to me before she puts them back in a safe place. My son is always asking me questions about butterflies, ladybugs, spiders and other creepy crawlers. Their fascinations for insects have grown over time with the many shows and movies available about bugs like, Little Miss Spider, A Bug's Life, and Ants. Having a vegetable garden has also increased their knowledge of the bad buggies and good buggies for our plants.

After doing some research on the Internet, I came across sites selling kits for live insects. I thought to myself, what a good idea it was to expand my children's interest for insects in a control environment. I was amazed on how many types of insects you can order including reptiles. So far, we have tried three different types of insects which were ladybugs, butterflies, and praying mantises.

I can not tell you for sure which one was my favorite since they all had their own appealing features. My children, including childcare children, loved the ladybugs and butterflies. You can easily view the transformation of the ladybugs and butterflies before your very own eyes. As for the praying mantises, you have to have a great deal of tolerance for insects. There will be literally hundreds of them hatching from one single egg. They look like little maggots coming out from their egg. 'It is gross but cool ', as my son said it well. All the insects we had were released. The ladybugs and praying mantises were put into our vegetable garden; they are beneficial insects that eat the bad bugs.

All the insects' kits that we ordered came with live insects, food, a habitat and fun facts and information about our insects. The ladybugs were in their larvae stage, while the butterflies were tiny caterpillars. The praying mantises were still in their egg. It took approximately three weeks for the ladybugs to convert to their full stage and about 4 weeks for the caterpillars to turn into butterflies. Depending when you get your praying mantises; it might take a while for them to hatch. They normally come out in the spring when the weather is warmer. It our case they hatched 4 weeks after we received them.

I had the children view the insects each day and tell me what was happening. The older children kept

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>