How a Butterfly Grows: teacher key

Butterflies, grade 6 edition, written for 6th grade. Read about the steps of a butterfly's life, how its body works, and how monarchs travel.

Read the book. Print this page for the key.

Questions and answers

As of November 2026, how far was the longest one-day flight of a tagged eastern monarch?
- 3,000 miles
- 265 miles (answer)
- 50 miles
What is a cocoon?
- Another name for a chrysalis
- A butterfly's long tongue
- The silk case a moth caterpillar spins (answer)
A monarch caterpillar grows through five stages and sheds its skin between them. How many times does it shed its skin between stages?
- Five
- Four (answer)
- Six
Monarchs fly north in spring over three to five generations, and each generation lays eggs and then dies. What does this mean for the monarchs that reach the far north?
- They are descendants of the monarchs that left the winter forest (answer)
- They are the same monarchs that left the winter forest
- They never lay eggs
What does metamorphosis mean in 'The big change from caterpillar to butterfly is called metamorphosis'?
- A kind of food
- A big change (answer)
- A kind of plant