Outdoor Hour Challenge No. 22

We're skipping ahead a bit on the Outdoor Hour Challenges from the Handbook of Nature Study blog, partly because I wanted to spend the whole term focussing on Insects and other Invertebrates rather than trying to finish Garden Flowers.

The first challenge in this series was to do with Butterflies, which is a great place to start. After talking a little about the different stages of life a butterfly goes through (egg, larva/caterpillar, pupa/chrysalis and then adult butterfly) we headed out to the park to look primarily for butterflies but also for any other insects we might come across.

We saw three types of butterflies, took pictures and then tried to work out what they were when we got home.

This one we decided was a Small Copper

This one looks like a Small White

This one we think was a Common Blue. It looked really blue when it was flying about, but it was hard to get a photo to show that. When it was at rest on a leaf we could only see the underside of its wings. Still, they were quite pretty too.

Eventually we got a photo with its wings spread out.

When we got home, Sophie also copied out a picture of a butterfly and labelled all the different parts of its body to put in our nature diary.

Below is one of the photos I took this summer when we were on holiday in Luxembourg. We spent the afternoon at a butterfly garden. It was a magical place! As soon as you walked in there were giant butterflies, all different colours and species, flying about all around you. The children loved it, and still talk about it.

Some of the butterflies were huge - you can tell by the size of the orange slices on the plate.

We learnt lots about the life cycle of the butterfly, and it was amazing to see all the different chrysalises that had been collected and hung up in the incubator by the staff team.

Back to our nature walk last week, whilst we were in the park we came across a few ants and bugs, including this interesting brown beetle, which Charis found. We popped it into our bug jar and took it home to draw it and identify it, but we couldn't work out what it was. We wondered if it might be some kind of Chafer, but it wasn't at all hairy. Answers on a postcard please!

Abide in Him!

Starting A New School Year

Here in Russia the first day of school, September 1st, is a special holiday. It's an especially important day for those just starting school in Year 1, aged 7. Sophie and I went along to watch one of her best Russian friends attend her 'Первый Звoнок' or 'First Ring (of the school bell)'. The children were dressed immaculately, the girls with large, white hair decorations, the boys in their new suits, and all clasping bouquets of flowers ready to present to their new teacher. There was dancing and singing, and poems about the new school year read out by the older pupils. There were speeches and awards, balloons and banners.....

Our first day of the school year didn't go off with quite as much ceremony! Perhaps next year we should dress up, dance and sing and read poems. We should invite friends and I'll get my husband to buy a big bouquet of flowers that the children can present to me at an opportune moment!

Sophie has just started Year 2 of the Ambleside Online curriculum we follow. In Russia she would be just starting Year 1 if she'd gone to Russian school, and in England she would be going into Year 3. All a bit confusing! However, we love homeschooling, and we're really enjoying our AO curriculum.

Our first week of school was delayed until 10th September because of having recently moved back to Russia and needing to unpack and sort ourselves out. The week before I'd shut myself away in my husband's office for a whole day to plan the term ahead. Amy in Peru has written some really helpful blog posts here about how to have a homeschool planning day once a term. It's a day I really enjoy, actually, and is so helpful in ensuring that the next 12 weeks go smoothly without too much extra work on my part getting materials together.

Charis is starting a kind of Kindergarten year, which means I try to get her to stay at the table once a day at least long enough to do a little maths and beginning reading. However, she's joining in quite willingly with our folk song (Gypsy Rover) and hymn (For All The Saints) for the month, as well as many of the literature readings. She was entranced by the story of 'The Two Gentlemen of Verona' that we read from the Lambs' 'Tales from Shakespeare'!

This year Sophie will be continuing with her art classes in town once a week, and both Sophie and Charis will be doing dance classes twice a week together. Unfortunately our Russian nanny, who was providing some Russian language input for the children once a week, is leaving town. We've yet to find a replacement that will help boost Charis and Nathaniel's Russian, but Sophie is having a 30 minute lesson once a week with a friend from Church.

I have to admit, I love the start of the new school year! I love the fresh, new exercise books, the brand new pencils and pencil cases, the excitement of starting new books. I really enjoyed going around the shop buying all the equipment Sophie would need for her art class this year. I also love this time of year, when the weather's warm and sunny but not too hot, the apples are ripe on the trees and the leaves are beginning to turn golden. 

Here's to fresh starts, and a wonderful start to the new school year for all of you too!

Abide in Him!