Life Cycle of a Monarch Butterfly

Since the first day of school, our class has had the opportunity to observe the life cycle of a Monarch Butterfly right in our own classroom.  We have watched our caterpillars (larva) eat milkweed, grow and shed their skin several times until they were big and fat.  We watched them make 'sticky, white stuff' that 'looked like a web' on the top of the tank and then hang upside down in a 'j'.  We then saw our caterpillars disappear into a pale green and gold chrysalis (pupa) and emerge as a beautiful, adult butterfly 12 days later.  While watching the 2 caterpillars that were in the tank, we suddenly noticed 2 more that hadn't been there before.  Where had they come from?  We think we had eggs on the leaves of our milkweed that hatched.  Now those caterpillars (larva) have grown big and fat and have disappeared into their chrysalis (pupa).  We are patiently waiting for them to emerge.
In the meantime, we have done some fantastic writing about each of the stages that we observed!
Ask your child to tell you everything they remember about the lifecycle of a Monarch Butterfly and about how butterflies are different from moths!