Outdoor Hour # 25

This time we took a closer look at houseflies. It wasn't the most pleasant topic but it was good that the kids also learned about the importance of not letting flies close to your food etc.

We checked out the life cycle of flies from here. We also tried to watch the video of houseflies that Barb recommended but it didn't work for some reason. Might check that later on though.

Lucas drew a giant fly (on the left), a man that's looking after it (the one with the read hair sitting on a chair), a horse and a princess.

Blogger decided this picture looked better this way... Luana drew a woman riding a horse and a man walking. Oh, and there's a fly on the sky too :D

Recycling

My husband started a degree in Environment Management (or Gestão Ambiental) earlier this year and ever since the environmental issues have been an increasingly popular topic of discussion at home. I've always been on the greener side of things and my husbans's never really opposed to anything ecological that I've suggested. Now that he's studying the field himself he's constantly learning new facts about the state of the environment and getting small wake-up calls I guess.

Recycling (as done in Finland for instance) is quite difficult over here. I do realise things are different in the bigger cities in Brazil but we live in a small rural town where many things are still unknown or total novelty. There's no organised recycling at all. You can take metal to certain small entrepreneurs that actually pay you for it. However no one recycles glass, paper, plastic or organics. My tactic is to reduce waste as much as I can as well as recycle everything I can inside our own house.

My husband now has to come up with a project that deals with recycling in one way or another. His group decided to renovate a few rooms at the local orphanage (where I also volunteer) and use as much recycled materials as possible. Needless to say the orphanage manager was thrilled at the idea and the group has now started working on it. Our yard looks like a recycling centre as most of the ten group members bring used plastic bottles and other things to be stored at our house... I keep telling myself it's for a good cause and it'll only be for a while :)

Seriously though we had a good time yesterday with the kids cleaning up the bottles and cutting some of them in order to make a prototype of a small seat out of the bottles. I'll post the step-by-step instructions as the first one is done!

The Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY May 19th... (yes, I do realise it's already Tuesday...)

Outside my window... it's sunny with blue skies and a little windy; perfect laundry weather!

I am thinking... about spending most of the afternoon at home with the kids and doing some nice things.

From the learning rooms... insect study concentrating today on houseflies.

I am thankful for... every moment I get to spend with my kids. Now that I've got some busy afternoons I really miss staying at home all the time.

From the kitchen... I'm feeling a bit of a lack of inspiration at the moment... It'll be rice and beans for lunch today in a true Brazilian style.

I am wearing... leggings and a summer shirt. It's really hot as the rainy season is finally coming to an end.

I am creating... new ideas for crafting with the kids at the orphanage.

I am going... to teach English this afternoon.

I am reading... teaching material and still the theory booklet for driving school... The exam will be on May 28th!

I am hoping... my cakes turn out yummy for Sunday's baby shower at the orphanage.

I am hearing... birds in the garden and some cars passing by.

Around the house... some cleaning is waiting to be done :)

One of my favorite things... is to hang laundry when the weather is as gorgeous as it is today.

A few plans for the rest of the week: vol work at the orphanage, lots of nice stuff with the kids during the afternoons, yummy baking and some Spanish lessons at the language school.

Here is the picture thought I am sharing...

This is something we created with my husband during the weekend for our living room wall.

You can find more daybooks here.

Outdoor Hour # 24

This time we were off to study crickets and unfortunately I don't have any of those in my collection on dead insects :) I knew some of our books happen to have crickets and grasshoppers in their illustration so I asked the kids to find them. Lucas went through two smaller books and Luana took the bigger book in order to find the cricket.

The kids made drawings looking at the books' illustrations and I told them about how the crickets lay up to 2000 eggs at one time. Luana was so impressed by this that she drew loads of eggs in her drawing :) Lucas decided to draw a mantis (that was a new word in English for me!).

We also talked about different beliefs involving crickets here in Brasil. Depending on its colour a cricket is said to bring illness, wealth or hope. They are also said to predict a pregnancy in the household.

And look what the kids found just outside our front door later on this afternoon! What a perfect timing!

Prayer request

Please pray for little Noah who's dealing with some really difficult health issues. You can read his mama's blog here.

Homeschooling in May

Butterflies related to our Ourdoor Hour theme the kids made last week.

Our homeschooling has been really irregular lately and I figured I should focus more on the planning (and actually executing my plans). So I thought I'd write down my expectations for this month.

Finnish:

May 12th is the day of Snellmann (a Fennoman philosopher and a statesman) and I want to use the opportunity to enforce the use of the language. We speak Finnish all the time but lately we haven't sat down to read, sing etc. as much as we used to do. So this month more reading, poems and songs in Finnish. I will encourage Luana to read one small book each week and to work on her reading journal. I discovered a great site that Luana can use by herself in order to practice writing and reading in Finnish (as well as a host of other skills) in here.

English:

I want to introduce the notions of singular and plural (the kids already have some vocabulary so we can practice those). I'm also going to work on "I have", "I like" and "I am". Depending on how that goes we might expand these into other persons as well. I'm actually curious to see how they'll handle verbs as we've only learned nouns until now.

Outdoor Hour:

I don't have any specific goals or expectations other than completing one task each week. Luana should have her cast off this weekend so we can do our nature walks again.

Bible Study:

I'd like to be a bit more creative with our Bible Studies. The children's Bible we use has great illustrations but I'm going to do some arts and crafts related to what we've studied each week.

Arts and crafts:

Crafting has been happening but not as much as the kids (or I indeed) would have liked. I think I've been a bit disorganised with my time during the afternoons. I'm hoping to explore more the idea of a weekly theme and I'm hoping that'll help me to supply the needs of my little craftaholics :)

This afternoon it'll be English with animals from the zoo for us.

Outdoor Hour # 23

It was time to study yet another dead sample of my collection and this time it was a moth. We observed the moth with the magnifying lense and talked about the differences between butterflies and moths (which in Finnish are called simply "night butterflies").

I encouraged the kids to divide their paper in two sections and to draw a butterfly on one side and a moth on the other side. Lucas drew a huge sun and a butterfly underneath it (see it? It's his first ever butterfly and he was sooo proud!) :) On the other side he drew a moon (see it? It's his first ever moon and he was again sooo proud!). Later on he also drew a moth underneath the moon.

This is Luana's picture. We did discuss the colouring of the moths but the one on the right is however a moth (see the stars and the full moon that tell you it's night?) :)

Best part of this task was by far Lucas' joy of his new drawings.

The Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY May 4th...

Outside my window... it's already dark.

I am thinking... about my friend's daughter who's having a difficult time coming to terms with her parents' divorce.

I am thankful for... all the chores completed today as well as for my first theory lesson in the driving school.

From the kitchen... I can still smell the chocolate cake baked earlier today.

I am wearing... shorts, tank top and socks (because of the mosquitoes, not the cold!)

I am creating... a menu for this week.

I am going... grocery shopping tomorrow.

I am reading... blogs that I've discovered recently, some teaching material for Spanish lessons and the theory booklet for driving school.

I am hoping... I'll get the necessary medical exams for driving school done this week.

I am hearing... loud cicadas (tibicen linnei) and our dogs barking at passers by.

Around the house... it's quiet.

One of my favorite things... is to sit down and relax with a cup of tea and read the Bible.

A few plans for the rest of the week: grocery shopping on Tue, voluntary work at the orphanage on Thu and Fri, ladies' dinner at church on Fri.

Here is the picture thought I am sharing...

Some flowers I received from the kids today.

This is the first time I'm participating in the Simple woman's daybook. You can participate here.