....and finally, a Nature Club Walk!

Our Nature Club had a wonderful morning at the Silvermine Dam last Wednesday when all the little ones became fisher folk for the morning.

Carla is looking quite serious here, but actually she has all the children captivated as she's about to take her Googly Fynbos finding eyes out her pocket to start the hunt for Fynbos.

The view of the dam. 

This is an awesome place to visit.  We started off here and walked around the dam to a sheltered spot way over there on the other side.  Can you see it?  It's just between those low bright green bushes.
Along the way the children spotted King Proteas, Ericas and lots of Restio reeds. These are pictures of different King Proteas we found: the top one is already dying but the bottom picture is a new bud about to bloom.  I never used to appreciate our natural flora before-spending more time around and in it has definitely helped me to appreciate it more.  I'm falling in love with the beauty of these plants more and more everyday.

As you walk along the path you pass some very interesting spots for having braais.  Some are right on the rock ledges just hanging over the dam!

Crossing the bridge we checked for any fish-but alas, I think the choppy wind was keeping them from surfacing in the cold weather.

This was an interesting find: an ant nest in the trees!  There were actually three of them filled with busy little ants going about their hard work.

We thought these were Red Hot Pokers-they look so much like the aloes which also flower at this time of year.  Nature providing us once again with those all important skills of discriminating similarities and differences.

Once we found our sheltered spot we all settled down to listen to the story of Jesus and the Miraculous Catch of Fish.  Amazingly the fish we were hoping to catch are called Tilapia-according to internet sources it was the same fish that the disciples caught and the same fish that had the tax money in its belly!

And then it was time to fill up our buckets and wait patiently to catch a fish!

 A little bit of bread throwing to attract the fish.

 When you're too little to wait patiently for That One Big Catch you must find other fun ways to entertain yourself.  Water play-the best fun ever!

And if catching a fish is taking a little longer than you expected you can always get innovative and use the fishing nets as jump poles.

But what a great reward it was when that first (or those first) two fish were caught in one swoop of the net!

Soon everyone else was on a roll scooping them out of the water. With shouts of: I've got one! floating across the dam.

This sweetie pie is never going to miss out on a learning moment-but when you've had a hard morning's work exploring all sorts, a snug spot in prime view position, is the best place to be!

Absolute delight!  The wonder of discovery-such a blessing to be able to share these learning moments with all of the special children in our group.

And when you didn't have the patience to catch one of your own, you can always become the teacher of those younger than you.  Look Deeky, this is how you must hold it-very carefully, see?

I know that Nature Journals are intended to be drawn in on location, but we find that it's rather difficult to sit still and quietly draw when you've got all that nature to explore and your friends to share it with.  So if Jenna is interested in drawing in her journal when we get home again she either draws a treasure she was able to bring back with her or we find a picture to copy.  My goal, at the moment, is rather that I encourage a love for nature and an understanding of journalling her finds and thoughts.  This is her entry from our fishing experience:

She draws first and then we discuss what she wants me to write for her about the experience.

Out and about in Nature with the whole family.

Our week-ends have been busy lately.  Or it's been raining so we haven't had much time to get out on family walks.  But two week-ends ago we took the gap between rain showers and discovered a new nature treasure just around the corner from us-Sand dunes.  I knew they were there but I didn't know how to get to them.  And then we happened upon them quite by chance.  Along the dirt road behind the Silverglades Sport's Fields there's a trail that leads to this......

Jenna loved climbing to the very top and rolling down again!

It's like we're walking on the moon mom!  Except of course for the wind which can have this effect on nature:

(Ooops, I should have rotated that one!)

One bonus of having Ray with us is that he captures the photos I just can't seem to take!  Must be that artistic eye. 

This was named The Fort,

which was great fun for all

 yes, even I ran down it!

It was windy in some spots and sheltered in others, cold too. A light rain started to fall as we made our way home but despite all the "bad" weather we all had a blast!

There once was a little girl who wanted to be a ballerina.....

So her mommy and granny took her along to the UCT Ballet School open day.....

 Where she became a swan for the morning....

who was inspired by the Swan Princess...

(Can you spot her? Sorry I didn't have a bird's eye view)

 in awe of the swan like movements of the other ballerinas.....

and entertained by the Irish dancers.

In the end after seeing the Spanish Dancers, Swan Lake Classical Ballerinas, Contemporary Ballerinas and the Irish Dancers she declared:  I liked the Swan's best, mommy!

Who knows, my little cygnet.....perhaps one day you'll get to spread your wings and fly!  Set the barre high and you may just find yourself standing in first position in that exact same spot a few years from now!

Nature Walks around our area.

In the mornings after chores and breakfast, we usually try to head out for a walk (or ride for the kids), depending on the weather, as it's Winter here of course!  Last week we spent most of our mornings checking on the rivers and the canal to see if they are flowing yet.  It's been raining quite a bit-but not enough to make a river flow. 

 Last year we spotted a crab here.  So every time we return there is always a hunt for a crab!  No luck this time though.

We live on the flat parts of our area, but there are some hills too as it's right alongside a mountain.  Jenna and Michael are still learning how to navigate the steeper ones-sometimes it's just easier to get off and push!

Michael spotted this "strong tree mommy-it's pushing up the bricks!"

Of course, going up hills means you have to come down again.....and when you don't have great brakes you have to make a plan.....

 Or you could end up in the restios!

 But if you have great brakes, you have to wait patiently at the bottom of the hill for everyone else to catch up.

Some mornings we go on a litter walk-Jenna's idea-it's amazing how much is thrown into the bushes!  We find all sorts, sometimes some are worth taking home too!

We've lived in this particular area for just over 3 years now and we walk most days, weather permitting. I've learnt so much from just walking around and observing the seasonal changes.  I had no interest in Geography at school and although I studied Biology and Science I can't say that much of it made sense to me.  But being outdoors and experiencing the seasonal changes in these past three years, my interest in my world has grown so much.  Facts I tried to understand in Standard six and seven Geography are actually beginning to make sense now!  Nature Walks are one of our most natural ways of learning.

The aloes are beginning to flower.  Our beautiful winter flowers.

 Rain puddles are such fun to ride through, again and again and again!

A field of aloes!!!

And then at the end of our road we have a Nature Reserve-it's not a big one, and as you can see it's right in the middle of a built up area.  This particular morning we spotted Springbucks and Ostriches up close for the first time.  We usually only get to see the Springbucks up on the mountain side far away in the distance-so this was a super treat!

And then it seemed like all the wildlife came out on display for us.  Here are two of the male peacocks we spotted.

And over head our resident heron flew over.  He comes and sits on our neighbour's roof sometimes.

And just as we were about to leave we saw these little buck.  I think they're Klipspringers, but they weren't close enough for us to get a good look.

We love being out in nature.  I love the relaxed way in which we can learn about the world around us in our own time.  

A quick peek at maths in our home.

Pocket money....so many lessons to be learnt....

We set up a chore system after which the kids get paid for their chores and can spend their money on anything they desire.  We've started off with a very low payment per chore-we'll give them a raise soon ;-)  They have little sense of the value of money and not much knowledge of the coins or notes-evidence that mom uses the credit card too much ;-) .  It's made shopping trips very interesting!

As I didn't have the coins on hand we substituted beans for coins and got an added lesson in counting.  Michael's concept of numbers and his counting ability have grown so much.  At the beginning of the year he could count to six.... now he get's to twenty most days. There are so many little lessons which can come out at payment time: counting, making up groups of a number, matching one to one....

or in Jenna's case counting in groups of five.  I had been really hesitant to teach her counting in 5's, 10's and 2's as I couldn't find any practical way to relate it to her life so that it would make sense to her.  As soon as we started pocket money it became a natural exercise.

Lapbooks.....I thought we'd give these a try!  So before our visit to the Fire Station I found a Fire Station lapbook online at HomeSchoolCreations.  We found different ways of using the ideas in the lapbook-making it seem more like a game.

Matching number symbols to dot "fire dogs".....

 using beans (again!) to match one to one to the dalmation's dots.....

 identifying a number mommy calls out and counting out the number.

I believe counting is really important to develop number concept.  So we count a lot!  We use all different types of counters (beans, plastic stars, acorns, cars, legos, bottle tops) and these counting frames are great for counting out a number and then dividing it into different groups of 10, 5, 2, 4.  This is a good foundation to multiplication later.... How many groups of 10 make forty?  How many groups of 5 make forty? etc.

I try to keep maths as practical and hands on as possible. This does mean though, that at times Jenna has to play games at Michael's level-but that's what makes it more fun for them....

The lapbook had a repetitive pattern activity in it and I wasn't sure if Michael would understand the concept.  So we played at making different patterns.  First copying mine and then extending mine and then creating their own.

Doing a lapbook resulted in LOTS of cutting.  Something Michael doesn't really sit down to do on his own.  So it ended up being fine motor and hand-eye co-ordination experience for him too!

Before we made a pattern in our lapbook there was even  a bit of sorting to do....not a difficult task but an easy way to see if he understands the words-put the same pictures together-for developing sorting vocabulary.

 We also like playing maths games on the computer.  This is a Gold Star maths CD I use with Michael and if we're not out of internet time Jenna and I spend time on the IXL maths site.

Jenna still likes to have pretty books to work in-I think if I had to choose her learning style it would be Visual-so I found these Numeracy and Literacy books by Smart-Kids.  They're one of the more interesting workbooks I've found and plus they're South African.  I still like the way Maths was taught at schools here and for the moment I'm finding using the CAPS curriculum statement as a guide line along with a few tips from Ruth Beechick to be the way we're going for now.
So when I do problem solving with Jenna, Michael usually plays with a maths game that he can do on his own.  (I think this is called Geo-Stacks in the Smile catalogue-I bought it second hand long ago in my early days of teaching ;-) Then she can work in her Maths book while I play computer games with Mikey.

Learning at our home has been a lot more structured this year..... but there are days when I say: let's throw out the routine and we may just spend time in the kitchen bringing maths to life by making soup and chicken pie for supper.

How many stars can you fit on your dough? Which is the best way to layout your girls to save dough?

Oops!  That reminds me-I need to go switch the oven on otherwise THAT pie won't get eaten tonight!