It's been a few weeks without our Tuesday nature class. The weather this time of the year is not treating us very well - it rains every day in the afternoon. And as our class in in the afternoon and nobody wants to get soaked wet, the class gets cancelled very often.
This Tuesday it also almost got cancelled - it was raining in most parts of the city in the early afternoon, but around 3pm the rain stopped.
This week we visited the Fuyang Ecopark for the second time. You can read about our first nature class in that park HERE.
Of course almost as soon as we started the class it started raining. We had to find shelter at a covered rest area (just like last time). Fortunately the teacher has prepared an interesting activity for the kids - they were making a natural mosquito repellent.
This Tuesday it also almost got cancelled - it was raining in most parts of the city in the early afternoon, but around 3pm the rain stopped.
This week we visited the Fuyang Ecopark for the second time. You can read about our first nature class in that park HERE.
Of course almost as soon as we started the class it started raining. We had to find shelter at a covered rest area (just like last time). Fortunately the teacher has prepared an interesting activity for the kids - they were making a natural mosquito repellent.
The main ingredient was dried and powdered mugwort (艾草, bylica pospolita, Artemisia vulgaris).
The kids got a piece of slowly burning paper which they they had to twist to form a cylinder.
Next they had to fill the cylinder with mugwort powder and pack it tightly:
After twisting the other end we get a big "candy" which can be burned to keep the mosquitoes away.
Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the finished product, sorry.
After it stopped raining we ventured out to look for some creepy crawlies.
There are some paths in this park that have been permanently closed due to landslides:
Do you have a favourite insect? I do, it's praying mantis. I love it's slender body, long legs, the will to fight, but I don't really like that it can eat their own kind. Yikes!
We met a nice lizard, the teacher pointed out that it must be pregnant cause it was quite fat and not moving very fast.
We also spotted a beautiful dragonfly and damselflies.
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| Dragonfly - 蜻蜓 - Ważka różnoskrzydła - Anisoptera |
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| Damselfly - 豆娘 - Ważka równoskrzydła - Zygoptera |
We also learned some interesting things about a planthopper pyrops (白蠟蟬 - Pyrops watanabei) which lives only on one kind of tree in Taiwan, Chinese tallowtree (烏桕 - Sapium sebiferum - smokrzyn łojodajny).
We have also spotted many, many Giant African Snails. They were all out - on the leaves, under the leaves, on the bark of the trees, on the ground and on the rocks - there were snails everywhere!
Did you know that snails have the greatest number of teeth among all animals? One snail has thousands of teeth!
When it rains snail try to get to the dry ground as they are unable to breathe in water, they may drown in a puddle.
When it rains snail try to get to the dry ground as they are unable to breathe in water, they may drown in a puddle.
Kids got a chance to touch and observe from very close some caterpillars. Here is a caterpillar of a kind of geometer moth (尺蛾 - Geometridae - motyl nocny miernikowcowaty).
And we also saw a nice spider:
(This week's photos are not of the best quality, my camera was misbehaving and did not want to focus. I hope it was temporary.)
Ależ skąd - zdjęcia b. udane, z przyjemnoscią obejrzałam!
ReplyDeleteDzięki, ale wiele zdjęć musiałam wyrzucić, bo naprawdę coś jest nie tak z aparatem.
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