Archive for May, 2013
Volcano Eruption
May
We have been learning about dinosaurs, which sparked an interest in volcanos, so we have had some fun doing some things with volcanos. We made this fun craft:
Spread some yellow, orange and red paint onto a volcano shaped paper.
Cover it with saran wrap, and then let your child spread the paint around.
No mess 🙂
Glue a mountain onto a piece of construction paper.
Add your volcano
Completed erupting volcanos.
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Model Magic Dinosaur Fossils
May
Last week we made dinosaur fossils, and while they turned out like I expected, Hailey was disappointed that she could not play with her fossil since it was breakable. So, my solution was to make another dinosaur fossil, this time using Model Magic instead of Plaster of Paris.
First up, press a dinosaur into some Model Magic
Hunter loved this!! He spent a very long time making footprints in his piece.
Once you are happy with how it looks, just leave it out to dry. If you just let it air dry it will take several days.
Hailey’s completed t-rex fossil.
Super simple, and they can be played with.
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Poppins Book Nook- Dinosaur Fun!
May
I am so excited to be a part of the Poppins Book Nook! This is our first month joining in the fun. Each month a different theme is picked and then everyone picks a book that relates to the theme and then creates some activities to go along with the book.
We picked “Dinosaurs Before Dark” by Mary Pope Osborne for our book. Hailey has just recently started reading chapter books, so she has been really excited that she can read these books on her own. If you haven’t read this book before- it’s a series about a brother and sister, Jack and Annie. This is the first book in the series where Jack and Annie discover a tree house. There are lots of books in the tree house and when Jack is looking at one about dinosaurs he wishes that he could see a real pteranodon. Suddenly Jack and Annie end up in the days of dinosaurs and of course, an adventure begins. I love the Magic Tree House series- they are fun, fictional stories but with lots of opportunities for learning about history added in.
We decided to make a dinosaur diorama for our project:
A shoebox just wasn’t going to cut it for our plans 🙂 so we used a regular box instead. Hailey got to work painting her box.
She added lots of different props.
Some dinosaur eggs
A volcano
She put a stream and a little pond in, painted some grass on, added some cotton clouds, put some sand and trees in. And of course, the dinosaurs.
Hailey’s completed diorama- she did a great job!
We also made a paper mache dinosaur:
First the dinosaur was formed using aluminum foil. There is newspaper stuffed inside his head and body to help keep its shape.
The dinosaur all covered in paper mache.
For paper mache, we use a 2:1 ratio of water to flour, and I added a little white glue to the mixture too. It takes a couple of days to be completely dry.
Once the dinosaur was dry it was time to paint him. We did a little research about the color of dinosaurs- some scientists believe that dinosaurs were gray, dark green, brown, etc. so that they could blend in with their surroundings. Other scientists believe that dinosaurs were colorful and even had pretty, bright spots in order to attract a mate. Hailey decided she agrees with the scientists who think the dinosaurs were colorful, so she painted him purple.
She added some pink and blue spots.
The completed paper mache dinosaur.
We learned a lot about volcanos too. I cut out some dinosaur footprints and wrote some volcano related vocabulary words on them (lava, eruption, magma, crust, mantle, outer core, inner core, pumice, tuff, and pahoehoe). Hailey wrote the definitions on the backs of the footprints.
Then she spread them around the living room. I made some noises and Hailey and Hunter danced around on the footprints.
When I stopped making the noise, Hailey read the definition of the word. The goal, of course, being that once we play it enough she will remember the definitions.
We did a bunch of fun activities all about dinosaurs so it was really hard to pick what to share! So, here are some of the other activities we did last week too:
Hailey made some dinosaur bones.
She created a dinosaur fossil.
One of her favorite activities was setting off a volcano she made.
She made this pretty dinosaur oil pastel painting.
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Check out some (or all!) of the other bloggers participating in Poppins Book Nook:
Enchanted Homeschooling Mom – Royal Baloo – 3 Dinosaurs – Monsters Ed – Chestnut Grove Academy – Growing in God’s Grace – Royal Little Lambs – Life with Moore Babies – Teach Beside Me – The Usual Mayhem – Mum Central – Fantastic Fun and Learning – Kathys Cluttered Mind – Play Create Explore – Toddler Approved – Growing Book by Book – Adventures in Mommydom – B-Inspired Mama – The Fairy and The Frog – Edventures with Kids – Learning & Growing the Piwi way – A Gluten Free Journey – Mom to Crazy Monkeys – No Doubt Learning – Preschool Powol Packets – To The Moon and Back – Our Craft ~N~ Things – Farm Fresh Adventures – Proverbial Homemaker
If you have your own fun activity to link up, you can that here:
Tot School
May
Hunter is 17 months old.
We had a super fun week at Tot School this week!! We were busy learning about dinosaurs and the color orange.
We had an orange day, Hunter loved wearing his hat. Our weather has been so crazy!! We had some days that were hot enough to need air conditioning. Then we had days so cold that some places in our area saw snow. Obviously, this was taken on one of the cold days.
Hunter thought this little dinosaur mat was pretty fun. He has loved playing with the dinosaurs!
Of course, he had to go and line up the dinosaurs with his cars.
Hunter growls every time he sees this dinosaur poster, although he says “tweet, tweet” for the pterodactyl.
Hailey read Hunter some books about dinosaurs. This is one of my favorite things to see- Hailey reading to Hunter!
Hunter and Hailey loved playing in our little dinosaur land.
Hailey made this volcano and we set it off several times. So much fun!!
Hunter painted some orange dinosaur footprints. He loves to paint!! Anytime he sees me get the paint out he starts saying, “More, more!”
We made some fun dinosaur fossils. Hunter always paints very carefully.
We also made some dinosaur bones.
Hailey made a huge bowl of bubbles.
Hunter thought the bowl of bubbles was great!
Stop by 1+1+1=1 to see what the other tots were up to this week.
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