Scientific Story-Telling about the Birth of a Butterfly (for 7 to 9 year old children)

Grandma’s garden had rows of pretty flowers. The earth was wet and the leaves in many shades of green. The butterfly eggs were glued to a leaf in a rosebush. Mama butterfly had laid them and had stuck their undersides with white glue. The birth of a butterfly was going to take place.

After a few weeks they had finally hatched. This is known as the larva stage when the tiny babies or ‘caterpillars’ in green or yellow and red were going to be seen all over the garden and especially among the softer newer leaves that would feed them.

Soon after birth, the lazy caterpillars could be found lolling their wriggly bodies in the soft shade as they nibbled lustily on the juicy leaves till their bellies were full. They had to, since many of them would grow up to ten times larger. They would also throw off their old skins four or five times and grow new ones to accommodate their soft fluffy growing bodies. They moved on many legs all over the green patches unaware that each was about to turn into a colorful butterfly.

In less than two weeks since birth, each one of them had grown enormously and had stopped wandering about. They had attached themselves to the undersides of leaves and were preparing for the next birth stage: the pupa. They were also beginning to lose their color and had turned into darker shades of brown. What a clever way to hide from hungry birds and frogs! Besides, if someone looked carefully she would have seen the pattern of wings trapped inside a frozen motionless pupa.

What a strange birth process! More than three weeks had passed while the pupae hung inert, sometimes fluttering a little in the soft breeze. All this time the baby butterfly was developing within. Soon it was time for magic….and one day a new butterfly began to emerge from its gluey sticky cocoon. It slowly unfolded each wing and hung it out to dry. Each butterfly wing was covered with tiny colored scales. In a couple of hours, it was entirely awake and its wings had dried. Its birth was now complete and it was ready to begin its life as a fully grown butterfly.