DINOSAURS!

When I was a little girl I LOVED dinosaurs! Probably more than I loved space! I wanted to be 3 things when I grew up; an actress, an astronaut, & a paleontologist! NO KIDDING!!! In fact to this day I still love watching things about dinosaurs!

Here are all the amazing books we read this week!
I try very hard to find books each week the boys can listen to on tape or CD. This week I lucked up with The Dinosaur Who Lived Next Door. One of their favorites this week was Dinosaurumpus! Very silly & very cute! Brady & I also began reading chapter books together & started with The Magic Treehouse Dinosaurs Before Dark. Brady can't wait to read another one! This just tickles my heart! I love that he loves to read & I pray it's always this way! We read about 2-3 chapters a day, depending what all we had going on. We took turns reading pages & I would help Brady with words he didn't know. I can't believe how much better he got at reading just after doing this book together! I can't wait to do more!

Our Bible verse was Genesis 1:25 & we talked a lot about how some people have different thoughts on how long ago dinosaurs lived & what happened to them. Of course we believe in Creation, not the Big Bang Theory so we read What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs & discussed what Creation Scientists believe. Brady doesn't seem to care whether they lived millions or thousands of years ago; he just thinks they're cool! But I know it's important to start teaching the truth young whether they understand all of it or not.

The boys also like the book Look Inside T-Rex & after we read it we did some fossil digging of our own! A long time ago I found a "fossilized dino egg" by Creatology at Michael's for a $1. It came with a chisel, a hammer, & a brush to help the boys uncover the dinosaur inside. This took a lot longer than I expected! But my lil paleontologists persevered!


I checked out a Dinosaur Theme Box by Lakeshore from the Resource Center. Inside they had lil plastic dinosaur skeletons. During nap/quiet time I went outside & hid them in the dirt. When the boys got up they got to to dig away to find them all! This was such a HUGE hit!!! And like Easter egg hunting goes, they wanted to do it over, & over, & over, & over! Can you tell we had a lot of fun this week!? :)

Our printables this week came from Confession's of a Homeschooler's Letter of the Week D is for Dinosaurs & 2 Teaching Mommies Dinosaur Pack.

Rylan had to match the dinosaur pieces to the correct color match. We also used dinosaur manipulatives to sort the dinos by color & species & made patterns with them.

Brady also used them to help him with his math as needed during the week & graphed them.

To practice his 1 to 1 number correlation, Rylan used the number cards from the Letter of Week (LOTW) pack & we said the # on the card, then counted the # of clothespins & attached them to the card which also helps him work on his fine motor skills. After we did all the #s, we would repeat it except he would count the clothespins as we took them off this time around.

Rylan also practiced lacing a dinosaur & using his magnetic pom poms to work on his fine motor skills too. His lil fingers sure are getting strong!

All these skills help Rylan with holding a pencil or crayon to practice writing. He began his writing practicing using his Do-A-Dot marker to write the letter D, then he traced the letter D with a dry erase crayon. He also practiced tracing lines by taking the dinosaur to the volcano (this came from 2 Teaching Mommies).

The boys spent a TON of time playing with dinosaurs this week! From the dino mat, to puppets, in the bathtub, outside, here, there, EVERYWHERE!! What can I say? We LOVE our dinosaurs!!

Keller decided to give the T-Rex a dose of his own medicine & showed him how it feels to be bitten :) He also had a lot fun playing with his baby T-rex book!

For our crafts I drew a scene according to Brady's description of what a dinosaurs home looks like. He said it had to have a volcano & grass & trees for the herbivores & omnivores to eat :) The boys then used dino stamps to create their pictures. They also used their dinosaur toys to make dinosaur tracks on paper to see the difference in each species' footprints.

We looked through all of our books & dino fact cards to learn about the various types of dinosaurs. I was pretty amazed at how many Brady already knew from just the past 2 years of liking dinosaurs. We don't watch Dinosaur Train a lot because they can go overboard with their own dino theories, but I will occasionally let them watch it & I'll ask questions about it & always redirect them to remember what we believe about the dinosaurs. Great teaching moments everywhere! The boys also watched The Land Before Time movie The Great Valley Adventure.

Our special theme lunches were dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets & dino shaped spaghetti Os & sandwiches in the shapes of Brady's favorite dinosaur; a Brachiosaurus! I also made him try salad because a Brachiosaurus would have liked them. To his surprise he like it! Though it was covered in ranch which I doubt the dinosaurs had LoL!!!

What would my kiddos do without a themed puzzle!?!? :) I think they did this one at least 5x a day! No kidding! Thank God for Michael's! We went there a few weeks ago & I racked up on wooden puzzles that were on sale for $1.50 or $2.50!!!

I hope you all enjoyed our DINO WEEK!!! Be blessed & have a great week!!