Introduce your children to the metamorphic lifecycle of moths and butterflies. Collecting and observing caterpillars will foster their interest in the natural world and increase their awareness of the local environment.
How long will it take?
Approximately 20 to 30 minutes to set up.
What you will need
glass jar
some caterpillars
plant for food
magnifying glass
Step-by-step guide
1 Help your children to look carefully around your garden, in the park or countryside near you for some caterpillars. Damaged leaves provide clues to where they might be.
When they find some, they need to put them in a glass jar. It is very important that they put some of the plant where they found the caterpillars into the jar as well. Most caterpillars only like one sort of food - they are very fussy!
3 Your children need to keep checking each day that the caterpillars have enough food and that it is nice and fresh.
4 They will not need to put any air holes in the lid of the jar, especially if they take the lid off once a day.
5 Now they just need to watch and wait . . . and wait . . . and wait!
6 Their caterpillars should get bigger, and might even shed their skin.
7 After a while, they will turn into a chrysalis. They will look as if they are dead, but wait patiently.
8 One day each chrysalis will hatch into a butterfly or a moth. Now your children can let them out into the garden.

Help your children to prepare boxes for the insects by putting some damp soil or compost in the bottom and adding a stone or two.
Go into your garden and help your children find some insects. They like to hide in cool, damp places. Let the children move stones, look in the compost bin and examine flowers, leaves and the soil. Your children can collect them carefully by using a piece of card to pick them up.
They need to put them in the plastic boxes, but should try not to mix the different sorts, just in case they eat each other! Give your children a magnifying glass to watch what the bugs do. They can put them on a clean piece of paper if they want to look more closely at them. How many legs do they have? What colours are they? Do they have any patterns on them? What do their faces look like? How do they defend themselves?
Now they can either put the bugs back in the garden, or draw one or more of the insects on the paper. Tell them to make their picture nice and big, putting their name and the date on the bottom of it.

Now for the prickly ones! The children need to pick them up by wrapping a folded sheet of newspaper around each one, so that they do not get the prickles in their fingers. Ask them to plant them in their pot and carefully firm them in.
When they are all planted, the children should place pebbles in the spaces between the plants, then use the sand and shingle to cover any soil they can still see.
They can water the pot gently using a watering can with a sprinkler end on it.
They should place their new garden on a windowsill and wait for it to start growing!
The garden will only need to be watered when the soil is dry. These plants come from places where water is extremely rare!
Drainage is all-important for these plants. Mix up two parts of compost with one part coarse sand or grit.

Tips and advice
Choose plants with your children from the 'cactus' section at your local garden centre. Take care with the thorns and prickles; some are extremely sharp! Others are dangerous because they enter the skin like a splinter, but cannot be seen, which makes removal difficult.
Although these plants are generally grown for their beautiful foliage, some will flower.

with childern

This exercise will give you the opportunity to talk about how cacti have adapted to the hot, dry environment of the deserts where they come from. You can also discuss the variety of different types that exist.
How long will it take?
An hour to plant up, plus a nice trip to the garden centre.

What you will need
plastic washing-up bowl or large plant pot, not too deep
crocks (broken plant pot)
shingle and coarse sand or grit
compost
cacti and succulents
a few pebbles from a beach trip or a walk

Ask your children to place some crocks in the base of the pot or bowl. They need to cover them with a layer of shingle or coarse sand. This is to give the plants the good drainage that they need.
Next they should mix some coarse sand into their compost, then nearly fill the pot with it.
Tell them to sort the plants into those with prickles and thorns, and those without. They should carefully take the non-prickly plants out of their pots and plant them into their bowl. They need to ensure there is enough soil around the roots - plants like to feel safe and well firmed into their new home, not loose and floppy!

Plan for spring
Plant up patio pots or borders with erysimum, more commonly known as wallflowers, for a cheery spring show. Although they can be grown on their own, try planting tall-growing tulip bulbs in a contrasting colour first and planting the wallflowers over the top. The tulips will then grow up through them to provide an extra layer of height and colour.
Deadheading
Deadhead roses as the blooms fade, cutting off the flowers just above the uppermost leaf on the stem. Trim back lavender bushes after flowering to remove the old blooms and shoot tips, taking care not to cut back too heavily into any old wood. Removing faded flowers from perennials and annual plants will also ensure a continued display of blooms.
Look out for greenfly on winter-flowering pansies and other plants. Treat with a suitable insecticide.
Give roses a final deadheading when the blooms have faded and shorten tall stems slightly to reduce wind rock. However, leave those that have developed hips for some extra autumn colour.