Learning about Monarch Butterflies

One fond school memory my older children have is raising butterflies. We bought a special kit, ordered our caterpillars and watched the magnificent change take place. My younger girls have been asking if they can have butterflies this year. As soon as the weather gets warmer, we will be ordering a new group of butterflies to observe. While we are waiting though, we started to learn all about these wonderful creatures by watching  Your Backyard: The Monarch Butterfly from Crowe's Nest Media.

Crowe's Nest media is a company run by a homeschooling family. They aim to produce nature videos that show God's marvelous creation.The Monarch video is a semi-finalist in the upcoming San Antonio Independent Christian Film festival for Best Documentary Film and Best Creation Film. That is quite an accomplishment!

We have studied about butterflies before and I thought I knew my stuff. I was pleasantly surprised at how much new information I learned about Monarchs! I had no idea about instar caterpillar stages, the difference between Monarchs and Painted Ladies, and that Monarch butterflies could be tagged.

The DVD is high-quality and presents the information in an interesting yet fun manner. All my children ages 3yrs. to 13yrs. enjoyed watching this video. I love that Crowe's Nest media showed how God wonderfully crafted these creatures. The images were stunning and I was so impressed with the children narrating the DVD. This is an awesome Christian science/nature-study resource to have-- and share with others.

After we watching the video a couple of times, we pulled out our Christian Kids Explore Science book and read more about butterflies. In the book it had a great idea of creating a butterfly life-cycle mobile---which we did. We talked about the many things we learned in the video.

Here's a closer view of the caterpillar---we think he turned out cute!

Oh no! We got a patchwork butterfly instead of a Monarch! :)

Crowe's Nest Media is in the process of finishing a downloadable study guide to go along with the Monach butterfly DVD. The study guide is designed to help children integrate the contents of the DVD and to further their learning. It will include content review, discussion questions, copy work pages for various ages, coloring pages, and opportunities for further study. There will also be notebooking pages so that children can create a "monarch" keepsake notebook. I'm looking forward to using this resource with my kids.

Your Backyard Monach DVD $19.95

If you purchase the DVD now and use coupon code : SpellOutLoud you will get the study guide download free when it is available (roughly a $9.00 value) plus $1 off the initial purchase. This code is good until Friday, Feb. 3, 2012 (feel free to share this code with others!)

Crowe's Nest Media is letting me giveaway 1 DVD to one of you! But wait--- there are also other bloggers giving away a copy of this wonderful DVD. Just visit each of the following blogs below for another chance to win.

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Visit these blogs to see their reviews and another chance at winning a DVD:

The Curriculum Choice
Finding Joy
Handbook of Nature Study
Mama's Learning Corner
The Traveling Praters
Get Along Home
Feels Like Home


Disclosure: I received this DVD and the giveaway copy in exchange for a review. The opinions stated are mine. I also will receive a small affiliate commission if you purchase the DVD using the coupon code listed above. Thank you in advance for supporting this site.