Kidspace Butterfly Festival

Kidspace Children’s Museum in Pasadena’s Brookside Park, next to the Rose Bowl, will welcome spring’s arrival and commemorate Earth Day at the Kidspace Butterfly Festival, featuring the 10th annual Grand Butterfly Release Ceremony at 3 p.m.

Butterflies are an important contributor to the natural cycle of pollinating spring flowers. On Saturday, April 22, the Kidspace Butterfly Festival will invite children to explore this natural cycle, and learn about the role butterflies play. From 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in the gardens, Kidspace will present Turn Yourself into a Butterfly, a special activity wherein children can transform into a butterfly and learn to eat like one too. At 2:30 p.m., author Eric Carle’s classic children’s book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” will come alive as children participate in the caterpillar’s life cycles. Also, enjoy lively programs about butterflies and caterpillars, create a butterfly mosaic or mobile, research metamorphosis at the Nature Exchange Research Station, and learn which native plants attract butterflies in a Kidspace Garden Adventure designed expressly for spring. Kidspace’s own Flutter-By, a character with the wings and body of a Blue Morpho butterfly, will flutter in to enjoy the outdoor learning environments in spring’s full bloom.

The Butterfly Festival will culminate with the Grand Butterfly Release Ceremony at 3 p.m. Native Painted Lady butterflies, cared for by children who adopted a caterpillar and observed the amazing process of metamorphosis first hand during Caterpillar Adoption Days, will be released into Kidspace’s Outdoor Learning Environments, where a ready supply of food and host plants can be found in the Bee and Butterfly Garden.

Please note that the Kidspace Butterfly Festival will be cancelled in the event of rain.

Kidspace Children’s Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are $8 for children and adults (infants less than 1 year old and members are free). Kidspace is at 480 N. Arroyo Blvd. in Brookside Park, Pasadena, Calif., just opposite the Rose Bowl. Free parking is available in Rose Bowl Parking Lot I.

For more information visit www.kidspacemuseum.org.