Espace Rambouillet

We went Espace Rambouillet on sunday. I went with the boys' school in June but A2 was sick on that day and Seb took care of him.  So he missed out the fun. I promised him that we will go visit it as a family.

Espace Rambouillet is a big forest park, home to many deers and wild boars. We walked in the forest to try to find the wild animals.After walking for half an hour, we came upon a herd of deers. We looked through our pair of binoculars to have a close up of the animals. A1 tried to walk closer to the animals silently.

In the group, there were male, female and baby deers. It was a beautiful sight. They were calm and moving slowly following the male leader. At the end were a few male deers making sure everyone were following.

We walked for another hour in the forest and came upon a group of wild boars. We kept a distance and observed them through the binoculars. A2 was afraid to go too near while A1 was trying his best to walk slowly and quietly to get a closer view.

At 3.30pm, we watched the birds of the prey show. The owls were the first to show up and they were perching near the spectators. They were pretty.

There were other birds like eagles, hawks and even vultures. They flew around and flew so low that one vulture's wing hit my head. Their wings were big and when they flew past, the sound of the wind was impressive.

The show was very entertaining and the highlight of the day. After the bird show, we went to the tree top walk at Odyssee Vert. The boys had fun walking along the bridge from tree to tree.

With that, we concluded our day at the park. There was a playground and picnic area at the entrance of the park. We enjoyed our day.

4 years ago when we visited this place, we did not get to see as many animals. The boys were young then and could not walk too long. 

Mushroom villages

The boys were on their bicycles and I was on foot with Handsome running around in the forest. The boys wanted to go further than our usual route. I agreed and we reached to this sandy area at the end of the forest. It was a long walk for me. A usual 30 to 45mins walk got prolonged to an hour and a half.

We spotted clusters of mushrooms. There were mushrooms villages popping up here and there.

Pretty little things.

Despite being mid September, the weather is still hot. We are enjoying this late summer with dinners on the terrace. Enjoying while it lasts.

School has started

School started last thursday on 1 September. A1 and A2 are in the same class again. There were more than 20 kids who finished primary school last year and only 6 3-years old starting kindergarten. This reduces greatly the population of the school. As such, a teacher was made redundant.

The rest of the three teachers in this kindergarten-primary school have to divide up the classes. 

Now, all three levels in kindergarten are taught by Sophie. Florence is taking the classes CP, CE1 and half of CE2. Véronique, the school principal is having the other half class of CE2, CM1 and CM2. This gives an average of 24 pupils for each teacher.

As A1 is in CE1 and A2 is in CP, they are both with Florence. Each teacher can choose his/her teaching materials. Last year, A1's CP teacher was using an old textbook dated more than 16 years old. This time round, Seb is happy to see that A2's CP teacher is using a different textbook. He does not want to go through the same reading material as A1 for A2. 

As I had mentioned before, studying in public schools in France is free. We do not pay school fees and only pay for lunch meals. Textbooks, exercise books and note books are provided by the school for free. 

The boys have to provide their pencil cases with writing pens and pencils, ruler, compass, color pencils, erasers and such. I spent about 10€ for their stationery this year.