The Friends Enrichment Program’s Monarch Butterfly Workshop gave participants, ages five and up, the opportunity to observe newly emerged monarch butterflies take their first flight.
Recently held in the Moorestown Friends Meetinghouse, the Friends Enrichment Program’s Monarch Butterfly Workshop was a fun-filled, learning activity led by Marlton residents Glenn and Candy Curtis and their teenage son Sean.
Participants, ages five and up, had the opportunity to observe newly emerged monarch butterflies as they flapped their wings and flew about in a tall, upright portable see-through shelter on Sunday, Aug. 27. Outside the shelter, a magnifying lens was passed around, so that everyone could have a close-up look at live eggs, caterpillars and chrysalises.
Under Sean Curtis’ guidance, children handled caterpillars and watched them crawl up their arms to their heart’s delight. The Curtis family has been growing milkweed plants in their yard for the past six or seven years and providing a welcoming habitat for the monarch, a butterfly that deposits its eggs almost exclusively on milkweeds.
The workshop concluded with the release of the butterflies skyward over Moorestown Friends School’s athletic field. Participants watched them flap their wings and take off. Workshop participants were handed small bags of milkweed pods.
For more information about the Friends Enrichment Program and its Sunday afternoon activities, call Monique Begg at (856)235–3963.
