Supplies - When should I order the MFW-K caterpillars &

[cbollin]

Just wondering how far ahead I need to order the caterpillars? How long did it take for you to get yours in the mail?
Thanks,
Lori

When we did K and the butterfly kit (2 years ago), I remember the card that you send in suggested a time frame for arrival. It came within that time frame. (but I can't find the exact time frame. 2 -3 weeks? I don't remember.)

Of course, we ordered them right away once we got the K deluxe packagae and didn't try to make it the exact same time as the butterfly unit in the Teacher Manual. took pictures and had a trip down memory lane when we got to that unit.

same thing for the ants.
crystal

[Omma]

We've just ordered our caterpillars. You can either pick the date you want them to come, or say to send them ASAP. If ASAP, they say it will take 1-2 weeks. Since they are coming from California (at least in our case), we expect them to take about 2 weeks, since we live on the opposite coast!

Hope this helps. We are excited to get them in time before Easter, since they represent going into a tomb (of sorts... a chrysalis) and then coming out with a new body (a butterfly that can fly). Sounds like a good Easter parallel!!

Brenda
ds 6
dd 4

[momof3nKS]

I ordered my caterpillars online last Tuesday and got them on Saturday....so that's 4 days.

I also orderd the ants, via snail mail, mailed out also last Tuesday and have not received them yet.

Cathy

[Charlotte]

Our caterpillars took 7 days (counting the weekend) to arrived by mail.

Blessings:) Charlotte

[Ariasarias]

it took about ten days to det our caterpillars and about 3 weeks for the ants to arrive. Our butterflies just emerged on Friday. The whole process was so exciting to watch!!!

[momof3nKS]

I hope this question does not seem to naive. We will be starting MFW K in September. I was wondering when I should order our caterpillars and ants? How long before the actual unit week? The guide says to order early but how early? What do I do with them in the mean time? Thanks in advance.
Jennifer

Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 6:48 pm
For whatever reason, it took a good 4 weeks for our ants to arrive. This was the second time around for us with the ants as we did it 2 years ago with my dd. I don't remember how long it took that time. I suppose the season would have something to do with it. I just put sticky note a couple lessons ahead of the Insects and Butterflies reminding me to order them.
_________________
Cathy

[allison]

Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2006 6:33 pm

We did both the ants and the butterflies this year with my dd. The ants took at least 4-6 weeks to arrive with a few unanswered e-mails and phone calls sprinkled through out. We ordered them in March so maybe it was just not a good time of year. It does say there are some temperature restrictions so that could have been it too. The butterflies came in about a week and a half. We ordered them the first part of May. We didn't receive the animals the same week we studied them and it worked out fine. We just did a review when they finally arrived. I don't know if this helps you in deciding when to send in the coupon for the ants or butterflies, I just wanted to share our experiences with them this year.

[Amy in NC]

Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 2:49 pm

We did K this year. We ordered the ants in the fall, maybe early November. I remember they came very quick, but I don't remember exactly how long it was. We definitely didn't have any problems or a long wait. We just let our butterflies go this week. The order form for the caterpillars had a spot where you could request when to receive them. I sent it in in early May, requesting to receive them the week of June 1st. They arrived on May 31st. I can't remember if the ants had a request date section. You might look ahead of time & request them for the dates you expect to study Insects/ Butterflies.

Postby Amy in NC » Wed Nov 19, 2008 9:56 pm

Our ants arrived the week of Thanksgiving. They did fine, but we are in NC. So, not exactly the Arctic tundra. I don't know if that helps?

[momspeapods]

Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2006 5:43 pm

Thank you everyone. I will look to see if there is a request date on the coupon. That would certainly help. I quess my worry is that I receive them early and don't know what to do with them in the mean time. Any suggestions?

Thanks again
Jennifer

[midnightowl]

Posted: Thu Jul 06, 2006 7:09 am

If you receive them before you've hit the lesson, it's really no big problem. Just dump the ants into their new home and have fun watching them! Same with caterpillars... When you get to the lesson, your kids will remember, I assure you. :-)

Lisa
in Mississippi, gearing up for 1st grade

[cbollin]

I need to send off for my ants. It said that it takes 2-3 weeks to arrive, with variations if the weather is too cold. I wish I had thought to order these last month when it was warm. Do you think they will still send them if they will arrive in December to Indiana? Also, for those of you who have done this, did it really only take 2-3 weeks for delivery? I really want to do this the same week we do the insect unit.

If I remember, they will ship later if they think it is too cold. Not sure what the threshold is.

The good thing is, you can do the ant hill whenever they arrive even if you've done the I I insect unit already. I know I'm still debating about whether or not to do the ant hill again. We're in unit 11 but didn't bother to mail for the critters. Instead, before the temps dropped last week, we went outside of lifted up a paver/rock thingy in the back yard and looked under it. Lots of ants and tunnels and worms and other critters. That was all my kindy kid cared to watch for a while.

-crystal

[mamanamadee]

We did the anthill last year in late March in Missouri. I remember that it was still quite cold when I ordered and that the ants arrived within the 2-3 week time frame--not longer than 3 as I expected. You will just want to make sure that they won't be sitting in your mailbox for hours after delivery.

And if you order right away and they happen to arrive before the insect unit, that's okay, since the ants keep working as long as they are alive. And ours lived a LOT longer than the expected life span.

~Naomi

Postby mamanamadee » Tue Nov 18, 2008 6:27 pm
The website says that they will ship year-round, it just may take longer in cold weather and you want to make sure that they won't sit outside for any length of time after delivery.

If you don't have your instruction guide from the kit, go to insectlore dot com Click on links: Learn > Product Instruction Guides > AntHiill Living Ant Habitat

[sarathan]

We just started our anthill last night! It took two weeks exactly to get our ants (they arrived yesterday). HTH!

[Poohbee]

I live in ND, and I ordered my ants in Nov. or Dec. I can't remember how long it took for them to arrive, but when they arrived in my mailbox, they were mostly all dead. I put them in the ant hill anyway, thinking they might revive when they got warm, but they were all dead within a day or so. They didn't sit in my mailbox long, but it was just too cold for them.

If the area you live in is cold right now, I would highly recommend waiting to order your ants until it is warmer. I ended up cleaning out the ant hill and waiting until it got warmer and then ordering them again. I ended up paying for them when I ordered them a second time. So, I'd wait and use that certificate that comes with the kit when you are sure that it will be warm enough for your ants to survive.

Just one opinion.

[FreshKid]

We are doing our insect unit this week for MFW-K. I just couldn't bring myself to have ants in the house. (We had a bad ant problem in the kitchen a year to two ago. YUCK!! We also have a farm and I could see the logic in bringing more ants to the farm when the fire ants are such a problem.) Anyway, we went to the Museum of Life and Science. They have a huge insect room and butterfly house. There is an ant "wall" too. It is a plexiglass window area where you can see the ants and tunnels "underground" and if you bend over, you can see the surface of the ground too. However, I thought the best ant exhibit was in the space exploration area. They had domes and pipes linked together. You could watch the ants travel down the pipes, get pieces of leaves, and take them back to the domes. DS doesn't even know the ant farm was an option!

[courthart246]

Awhile back I posted about being worried that ordering my ants for the MFW K Ant Farm in December in Indiana might be a disaster. But I wanted to let everyone know that our little ants arrived safe and sound yesterday. They are happily tunneling their way through the sand in their habitat. My children are all so excited and have been watching them off and on all day. My K'er, their "official owner", has even named one Johnny. How he knows which one is Johnny is beyond me, but leave it to him to start naming the little critters. Now, we don't start the insect unit until next week so I'm hoping that the kiddos stay excited. I've already ordered some ant books from the library so we can get an early start this week learning about them. Just thought I would share in case anyone else is needing to order at this cold time of year. We are the proud owners of Johnny and Company, all alive and well!

[Poohbee]

We are getting ready to start here shortly, but as I was counting up the weeks to the butterflies I realize it would be in Dec/Jan time frame... not exactly a great time for releasing them in OK... Would it mess the schedule up much if we do the butterfly week and the "butterfly garden project" earlier also? We are going to be starting school on July 19th and I would like to do the butterfly project shortly thereafter.
Any advice greatly appreciated!
Thanks, Chandra

We ended up just doing the week as it was planned in the schedule and then raised our butterflies (the butterfly house in the deluxe package) in the spring. We read about butterflies and learned about them according to the schedule, and in the spring when we got our caterpillars, we were able to review what we had learned about butterflies earlier in the year. It ended up working out just fine. I can't remember what the butterfly garden project is...is that raising the butterflies?

Also, because raising the butterflies is done indoors, you can get the caterpillars as early as they will send them to you (depending on where you live, they won't send them in the mail if it is too cold), and then you raise them indoors, and we released ours sometime in the summer. Just another perspective for you.

[ihvnangel]

Thank you so much.. The kids are just so excited wanting to do the butterflies. I guess we could go ahead and order them and release them when they are ready, then do the week and go over pictures of when we did them... then we could get another set in early spring.. Just didn't know if rearranging the letters and such would matter in the grand scheme of teaching phonics in this program. We are so looking forward to getting started!

[Cyndi (AZ)]

Yep - I vote for getting them early if the kids are excited and taking lots of pictures to review when you get to Bb butterfly.

I do not recommend doing the letters out of order - there's a method to the madness, so to speak. Save your garden and order more caterpillars in the spring. It's a fun, fun thing to do! It can easily become a yearly tradition. You do need to be able to let them go outside in 60-70 degrees, though. They'll live inside for a week or more if you're feeding them. We've done this several times. We kept a few inside a little too long once, though, and discovered that we had definitely had a male and female among the bunch and it took strategic timing to release them when they weren't "hugging." We were thankful we were able to avoid that little lesson. *red face* But I still highly recommend the whole butterfly garden project! It is awesome.

[blazingacres]

I'm in Ok as well & think I'll order mine right away. We started in June. I agree with lots of pictures to look at when it's time to complete the unit.

[Mom2theteam]

How much time do I allow to order the ants and caterpillars? I see the units that I use them in (Insects and Butterflies) but I don't see any ordering info.

At the end of unit 8, very bottom of page 69 in the manual, it suggests you order the ants. At the end of unit 18, bottom of page 121, it suggests you order the butterflies.

We just finished unit 8...we never did the ants last time we did K, but we have the kit...I wonder if I should order them......thinking........we are going on vacation in about 2.5 wks.....thinking.

[lea_lpz]

We just finished unit 8...we never did the ants last time we did K, but we have the kit...I wonder if I should order them......thinking........we are going on vacation in about 2.5 wks.....thinking.

Do it! The ants are mesmerizing to watch. If you already have the kit, it's only I think $12 for 2 tubes of ants.

My one tip would be to soak a small sponge for the ants water. We ended up sprinkling a drop or 2 and developed mildew, so we had to let the little guys go.

Happy to know when we repeat k we get to do some of what we missed!

Actually thinking of getting the frog kit for k and perhaps the earth worm kit for our next round of 1st. We did the glass jar suggestion which turned out ok, but after the settled in not much movement. We actually thought they were all dead and so I let the kids release them to "save" any survivers. Turned out they were all alive and kicking! Back into the jar they went. Fun...but the earth worm kit is thinner so I think you can see more tunnel action.

[Mom2theteam]

Actually thinking of getting the frog kit for k and perhaps the earth worm kit for our next round of 1st. We did the glass jar suggestion which turned out ok, but after the settled in not much movement. We actually thought they were all dead and so I let the kids release them to "save" any survivers. Turned out they were all alive and kicking! Back into the jar they went. Fun...but the earth worm kit is thinner so I think you can see more tunnel action.

So funny about the earth worms. We lost a huge caterpillar recently. He was a tomato hornworm. He went into the soil in our container to make his pupa. We watched him go in. A week or so later, my kids wanted to see him. So, we tried to dig him up...he wasn't there!!! We have no idea how he got out because he couldn't climb up the walls. Or so we thought! Dun, dun, dun!!! He is somewhere in our laundry room, but we never found him nor did we see a huge moth flying around the house. Oh well.

I'm thinking we will do the ants, but a little late. Right now, we have a caterpillar we are raising...it's a polyphemus, so very large (We've done this many times before with several types of caterpillars.)...tadpoles that are turning into frogs (we are totally excited because we've tried this before and they all died before they turned into frogs. This one is almost a frog!!! So, cool!), we had a frog we let go a couple days ago and we have a turtle who we hatched from an egg last year along with his 6 siblings who we gave away. Of course, we also have 3 cats. We definitely aren't lacking in zoology projects.

But, we have not done the ant thing and I think that will be fun.