Dinosaur Activities that make for great photo ops!

I have to admit that Ramona’s new kit ‘Rawrasaurus’ reminded me of one of my favorite units when I was teaching, DINOSAURS!! Kids just seem to love these extinct guys!  There are plenty of fun things to do and learn with dinosaurs.  I thought I’d share a few with you today.

Dinosaur Books

Any good unit of study is going to be based on some fun and informative literature! Children authors know how much kids love dinosaurs so there are TONS of both fiction and non fiction stories out there.  Check out your library for some of these awesome titles!

 

Books are a perfect thing to add to Easter baskets!! Photograph your child reading or being read to. Write down their favorite facts or favorite dinosaurs. Have them draw a dinosaur picture and take pictures to add to your layout.

 

Dino Land

One of the first things I always did was cover a table with green paper and let the kids create a prehistoric land that the dinosaurs would live in.  You can get some green wrapping paper for pretty cheap or a $1 green table cloth from the dollar or party supply store.  That and a pack of construction paper is probably all your little creator needs. But lets say you add some sand, grass and some other accessories, you can come up with a pretty awesome dino land!  Then once the kids were all done, we released the dinosaurs! They were so excited and spent HOURS playing over there when their work was complete.

 

Take photos while your child(ren) put it together and while they are playing.  Document some of the things they are saying and the stories they are acting out.

 

Dino Mask

Have your child create their own dinosaur mask!You can print out a mask here.  You can also just use a paper plate or paper. You might even get brave and delve into plaster of paris!  Take photos while your child makes and wears their mask.

 

Make Them Life size!!

Look up facts about how big the dinosaurs were or how big their foot prints were and draw them to scale using side walk chalk and your driveway or street.  This really makes the sizes come to life to older children. Take photos of your children drawing their dinos and standing beside them for size comparison!

 

I hope these activities get your imagination going on some activities to do with your own dinosaur lover!

What should you be doing in your garden now?

This warm weather is really getting me excited for summer time! This summer is going to be great because we are going to have TONS of fresh veggies from our garden. We're trying square foot gardening for the first time so I'm hoping we have great results! A few weeks ago we weeded, filled up our other bed we've never used and covered with trash bags:



Here in Oklahoma the official last day of frost scare is April 15 but the planting guide gave me the ok on a few different veggies. I noticed most of them were bottom growing plants.



So we planted carrots, green onions, yellow onions and turnips. For square foot gardening, carrots and onions are both 16 per square feet and the turnips are 6. I planted 2 seeds at a time in hopes that one of them at least would grow.



We also planted sweet peas and lettuce. I planted two sweet peas per square foot along the back so we can build something for them to grow up. And two lettuce across the front to take up the extra space.

After we planted everything, I covered everything back up until they sprout. The black plastic is supposed to help warm up the soil and help germinating.

It will be a month before we can continue our planting but for now, we're excited to see how our first batch of planting goes!

A fun (and easy) toddler art activity!

Its been awhile since I posted! Kids have been sick and things have been busy. Surprise, surprise right?  My husband is currently working a later than normal evening shift leaving me to cook dinner with two kids and no help.  So I’ve been looking for 20 minute art activities for Rett to do in the afternoon so I can clean up the kitchen and do some pre-cooking prep to make things go easier later on.  Here is a great activity that I ran across that I’d like to share!

Recommended age: 2.5+

Supplies needed:

paper

food coloring

eye dropper

small plastic containers filled with water

 

 

 

 

 

 

Directions: put 3 or 4 drops of food color into each plastic container. I recommend using colors that are brighter because there is some color mixing going on. Orange and yellow.. probably not a good choice.

 

After this its more of what your toddler/child does.  They use the eye dropper to suck up the colored water and drip it onto their blank paper. 

 

I did this with my 26 month old.  He did not get it. He LOVED stabbing the water with the eye dropped but couldn’t grasp the concept of having to squeeze the eye dropper to get the water into it and squeeze to get it out.  I had to help him a bit with his art.  He still enjoyed himself. This could also be a great mixing colors lessons for home schoolers.  Also great to work on fine motor and hand muscle building for special needs children or children with messy handwriting.

 

Here is before we started.

Here is our finished product!