Snake Handling

The children got to hold a real snake this morning while we were out at the shops.

And Noah pats the snake while it sits on Hannah's shoulders.

Yes, a real life dingo.....

Another Picture of Australia

Another attempt at Australia, this time with Floral emblems.

Australiana - A Couple of Classic Australian Poems

Sometimes you can find some awesome bargains being in the right place at the right time....

Here's a couple I got last week:

Published by Scholastic...

Essentially an illustrated walk through of the poem....

and...

for 50 cents a book, I might add.

Can't wait to share with the girls.

Beautiful, yes??

Yes.  :)

Australian Bush Birds

An awesome little find at a second hand market morning.

The dust cover was a little torn and damaged, so I just removed it after I took this photo.  I prefer my books to look old, if they can - so if it's a hard cover, I will generally remove the covers if they're not doing much in the way of making the book look lovely, inviting, or beautiful.

Inside it has a simple contents page:

I LOVED that it had so much introductory and helpful information!

Perfect for beginner bird watchers.

It will lend itself to so many bird lessons.

Awesome!

And then when we get to the birds themselves, we find colour plates on the right hand side, with the text on the left.

The end part of the book has many more photographs - in black and white with other pertinent information.

If you can find a copy of this book, I highly recommend it.

Australian Insects

Ever since we started getting into Nature Study I have found that it has been slowly and a most steady winding road to new delightful discoveries.

When we took up AO for Chloe it suddenly went into massive overdrive, and has been producing an entire whole new world to us.

This week while out in the wild I found this particular little gem.  A general flick through the pages revealed a hidden nugget of wealth.

I've been living in Australia my whole life, and all this time I had no idea to the extent of our native insects, let a lone any other animal species.

It's like I was robbed for nearly 50 years and all of a sudden my inheritance is being sent back home.

How did I ever get through life without doing Nature Study??

I have so much to catch up on.

Anyway, back to the book:  it does have some colour plates, but it was the copious amounts of detailed lined drawings that really caught my eye. 

 Can't wait to include it in our schooling along the way.

Notebooking AO8 This Week

Chloe gave me these note booking pages.

Did you know that if you go looking for a Blue Wren in a field guide you won't find it?  Yep, that was us this morning.  In the end we discovered that they are called:  'Fairy Wrens'.

Here is our first official Australian Bird field guide.  I've been homeschooling for over 20 years and I'm only just getting to purchase a field guide now.  Ridiculous Johnny come late......, but better than never, I suppose.  We haven't had it long - nearly a week.  I will also be on the hunt for more field guides now.  

There are sooooo many illustrations.

And for the longest time - I have had a book called the  'Atlas of Australian Birds' sitting on my shelves, but that's just it, it's just been sitting on the shelves doing absolutely nothing for like, forever.  I had picked it up at a second hand thingy for a bargain price yonks ago thinking that it "might" come handy one day.  However, now that we are getting deeper into Nature Study and Ambleside - I'm super glad I kept it now, it almost ended chopped up for it's pictures and thrown out because of its size.  It's amazing how a book we don't think much about can suddenly turn around and be an absolute gem!

* * * * * * *

This week I had her do her Geography on a map of old England - so that when she reads History of England she'd know exactly what and where the places they were talking about were.  

This morning she was reading about Olaf - and he ruled Mercia.  So by having this map available, it helped her to know where abouts in England that he ruled.  Makes it easier and more enjoyable with connections like that.

A Day at the Beach

One of the most awesome things about coming back to WA are the beaches.

On the weekend we travelled down south to spend a day at Margaret River where I also picked up a beautiful set of books.  I was thinking of cycling them through with Charlotte.  It'd be a bit of a journey, but yes, imagine the ground we would cover with every story in this set.

And after the bookshop and a walk down and up the main street we drove out to Gracetown so that we could spend some time at the beach on the way back home.

It's quite beautiful in places down there.

Loved the water, even though it was quite cold.

The children really enjoy their water time.

I love the crisp clearness of the water too.

And while the photos don't show it, { I was diligent to omit them } there were quite a few people down in this busy little alcove as well.

Yes, a beautiful day out.

Art Monday - The Pink Cockatoo

This week we went back and visited another Australian Bird for our Art Monday.

{ The Pink Cockatoo }

The books we used to help us....

Charlotte { 6 }

Hannah { 8 }

Chloe { 12 }

Noah { 3 }

Phebe had a little trouble......

and I also did one as well:

Art Monday - The Wedge Tailed Eagle

{ The Wedge-Tailed Eagle of Australia }

I modeled a nature journal page....

And then Charlotte produced this one.

And Hannah drew hers.....

and painted it thus.....

And Chloe did hers as well.  

And Phebe dolly did her bird perched on a branch in a tree that also had a tire swing!

Thanks so much for visiting.  

This year we continue with our nature journal / Art with Australian Birds, Wildlife and Plants.