Emily & I were outside filling up the woodbox in the garage.  It's amazing what flowers you can find when you're not trying to!  There above the wheelbarrow I noticed that the camellia bush is still in flower at the very top:

...and the little Hebe Sunset Boulevard which we were given as a housewarming gift last year is flowering again too!

The Hebe is a native shrub which has hundreds of varieties.  I love this one as it is my favourtie colour, purple!

So I picked a couple of blooms and brought them inside to draw:

Here are my drawings. The girls weren't too interested today, they had just started watching their Friday afternoon movie (The Fox and the Hound)  and have probably had enough of drawing this week!

The quality of some of my photos is not very good, I'll have to study up the camera manual a bit more!!

While I was outside taking photos of the shrubs I spotted a pair of fantails in the nearby tree.  I have tried many a time to snap a photo of one of these little native birds, but they are too quick!  So I have uploaded one from the internet.  Click here to go to a site with an audio file of the fantail's call.

Well, I'm sitting here this week thinking we don't really have any flowers in the garden to draw at this time of year.  It is officially Winter in New Zealand.  But Bethany can always find something!  The children were playing outside after completing their IEW lesson for the afternoon, and Beth came inside with this little bunch of foliage and just started drawing. 

Lets see which flowers we can identify in there:  There is a little white rose on the right, from the neighbour's bush which grows over our fence.  There are some little white & purple alyssum and a little purple lobelia which are always faithfully flowering in our pots, whether we tend to them or not!

Here is Ainsley with her colourful version of the vase:

The other thing going on in our backyard at the moment is a little explosion in our finch population.  We've been keeping finches, canaries & quail for the past few years, but hadn't had much success with breeding them this past summer.  Perhaps it was too hot, it was a record, long, hot summer for us here.  But a few weeks ago we had two clutches of zebra finches hatch.  Here are some of them in the aviary.  The chicks are the ones with the beaks turning from black to red.  Not many males this time round though, they develop the characteristic zebra markings on the breast & wings. 

The finch at the far end is a goldfinch.  I did a little painting of one a little while ago.  Here it is.

 For more on Green Hour #15, click here.

This challenge was to read the first few pages of the Handbook of Nature Study and then take the children outside for 10 - 15 minutes.  At the moment it is the last month of Autumn (Fall) in New Zealand, so we found lots of autumn leaves on the ground.  We brought a collection back inside and then sketched them & coloured them with water colour pencils. 

Our collection of leaves, what beautiful colours!

Ainsley's picture

Bethany & Emily busy drawing their leaves.

Emily holding her picture & poem. 

Here is her poem:

LEAVES

Leaves,

Leaves are pretty,

Full of colour,

Leaves are many too.

Bethany's picture of leaves.

Bethany's illustrated poem.

Here is her poem:

AUTUMN LEAVES

Now has come the time

When leaves fall off the trees

And cover the ground,

Blown by a breeze.

Sparkling red, or gold that glows,

Brownish-yellow leaves showering

Which fall 'til trees are flowering.

We also found this lovely web page full of poems about Autumn (Fall):

http://www.rosebriar.uk.com/seasons/autumn.html

There is a lovely but simple art project using pastels to draw Autumn leaves here.

Karine Bauche has lots of other art projects that are easy to do at home.  Check our her lovely site. 

http://www.teachartathome.com

You can also subscribe to her monthly free lesson plans newsletter.

I have just discovered Barb's blog for using the Handbook of Nature Study.  She has also created thee weekly Green Hour Challenge.  I love the idea and I am going to attempt to complete a challenge each week.  I'm a bit behind though, so I'll start with Challenge no.1.