This week is Black Garden Ants Week in Exploring Nature With Children. We have had a heavy week this week. You may remember that my dear Mother-in-Law is very poorly, and she has needed a lot of care this week. We did not manage our nature walk, but we have been busy observing the natural world around us.
Rose found a particularly handsome snail, which she fed with banana and took some photographs of.
Our Space Seeds are coming along well! This tray contains seeds from the red packet. They are growing strong!
Our caterpillars are due to make their appearance any day soon. I am hoping today, as I have to go away with my big girl tomorrow for a night, and we don’t want to miss all the action!
Have a look at my Instagram page to see our dancing chrysalis.
We sketched a chrysalis for our nature journals
I am always so fascinated at how beautiful the chrysalis actually is, with its gentle golden highlights. (Please ignore my spelling mistakes!)
How are your nature studies coming along this week?
Happy exploring!
Wonderful 🙂
Thanks Patricia 🙂
We had a lovely walk across our heath to observe the ants and I told the story of The Ant and the Grasshopper. I am doing an online course in storytelling with Fairy Dust Teaching. Love how you can bring literature and the arts into nature study. For next week I have found the book Summer Birds, a picture book retelling of the story of Maria Merian who disproved the theory common in the middle ages that butterflies were born from mud in a process called spontaneous generation. I am also fully utilising all Enid Blyton’s lovely nature books which I have found good for background information on British wildlife. I am finding John Muir Laws’ nature journalling videos helpful to improving my drawing but my son is content to just go out there and draw.
I love how you are weaving stories into your nature study, Tania!
Hi Lynn
I am sorry to hear about your mother in law, I hope she is feeling better soon. Your snail is very handsome, it is really enjoying that banana 🙂
We have been for our walk this week, I say walk but it was more of a shuffle, we were just enjoying all the flowers. We also saw quite a few minibeasts including a new (to us) butterfly. We did see some ants but as we have plenty in the garden we will investigate them tomorrow.
Our caterpillars are just that still caterpillars, still these things are not to be rushed.
Best wishes
Jenny
Thanks Jenny.
Our caterpillars are still chrysalides.
Sorry to hear about you MIL. Thanks for sharing your work. How old is your youngest daughter?
God bless,
xxx
Thank you so much.
Youngest is 10 years old.
Lynn x