Wonderful World Wednesday - Little black beetles

 

It's a new year and a new look at our Wonderful World Wednesday!! This week we are looking at these amazing little black beetles. Who knows what they are??? We tried to search "Google" but couldn't find anything that looked like them.... Do you know what they could be??

They were hanging out on the blackberry bush with the amazing little cone looking thing! It was like they had hatched from there, notice the brownish, shriveled looking insects there?? Were they food or little black beetles that didn't make it??

When we first saw them they were all together in one huge group but they sensed the movement from around them and scattered! They did join up once more but after another disturbance didn't huddle again. It certainly gave the children something to look at and study throughout the day (and me too!)
Smiles The Torrents'

Planning our homeschooling year 2015 (and a painted snail)

It's the last days of the holidays and the last days of planning to get done too! I've been busy getting journals organized, calendars written on and charts completed.
This year I'm going back to Five in A Row with my little ones (this way Sapphire can enjoy the family read time too!) and focusing on Tasmanian History for our main unit study for the older ones. Sophia has chosen horses to study about and we will be looking at A Year on our Farm picture book by Penny Matthews and Andrew Mclean each month learning about what happens on a farm throughout a year.
We're starting a new Maths program and introducing walks as part of our daily learning and exercise.
I'm looking forward to seeing how the coming weeks unfold as we get into the groove of it all.

 Sophia found this snail after some wet weather we had, 

she happened to be painting at the time and so decided to give the snail a renovation on his home!!

Hope he didn't mind!!

Smiles The Torrents'