• Sep. 26, 2007
Goodbye Dinosaurs!

We've done so much since I last posted, but I've only got time to post the last of our dinosaur stuff here right now. 

We made lapbooks to summarize everything we had learned in our dinosaur unit. The kids worked really hard on the items that went into these, and they really got into decorating their front covers. Here are a few pics.

Front Cover - Luke traced "Dinosaur" and free-handed his name. A huge accomplishment for him!

The top book has descriptions of dinosaurs that Luke dictated to me. The bottom book contains mini "reports" on five different dinosaurs. Luke chose the dinosaurs, a picture to go with each, and dictated the info. to me about each one.  Opposite page: photos of our fossil project

This was a graph that shows the measurements of a few different dinos. We went out in the backyard and marked off all of their lengths with a (very long) tape measure. This was a fun activity. The kids really were amazed to see how large and small some of these really were. Especially Apatosaurus - he was 90 ft. long!

These are just a few pages from the lapbooks. We also included our Scripture memory verses (Psalm 8:1-4), our reading list, and some other projects and pictures.

And finally, here is a list of books we really enjoyed during our study of dinosaurs. Hope you find these helpful!

What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? by John Morris and Ken Ham

Dinosaurs of Eden by Ken Ham

Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones by Byron Barton

If the Dinosaurs Came Back by Bernard Most

Dinosaurumpus by Tony Mitton

Four and Twenty Dinosaurs by Bernard Most

Raising Dragons by Jerdine Nolen

Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems

How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?

 and other books in this series by Jane Yolen

All of these were terrific. Superman and Giggly Girl are still asking me to read them, even though we've already started a new unit!

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• Sep. 20, 2007
Still Wrapping Up Dinosaurs!

Our two-week unit has extended to three! We've got some sick little ones around here, which has relaxed our schooling a bit, plus we've enjoyed our study of dinosaurs so much we just don't want to say goodbye to them!

Yesterday we read some more from What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? Then we built a volcano from mud and erupted it with baking soda, vinegar, and red food coloring. Superman and Giggly Girl loved this! We did it several times and will probably play with it again tomorrow.

Yesterday we finished up our cast fossils using the fossil imprints we made last week. The kids enjoyed this too, although it took some patience on my part. (I don't naturally enjoy working with messy stuff like plaster of paris, but I'm trying hard to overcome this because the kids love it sooo much!) You can find the directions for this activity at Homeschool Share. Just scroll down to Day 6 in the Dinosaur Unit. So much of what we did came from this terrific unit plan. Thanks again, Ami, for all of the hard work and time you put into writing this!

This has been such a fun unit! Hopefully tomorrow I'll have time to post lapbook photos and our dino. book list. If you want to see more of our dinosaur adventure just click on these entries: Field Trip, Bones, and Best Laid Plans.

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• Sep. 13, 2007
Field Trip!

On Tuesday we headed to Indianapolis to the Children's Museum to meet up with Marcy and Ben from the FIAR boards. Marcy's friend Valerie and her daughter Madison also joined us, and it was a real pleasure to meet these ladies and their little ones in person. That in itself was worth the two hour drive, making the museum the icing on the cake!

The highlight exhibit was the Dinosphere, which was obviously why we chose this museum. This is one of the largest collections of actual dinosaur bones (not just casts) in the country. It really was quite amazing to see. The exhibit has a sort of dome ceiling onto which images are projected (night sky, daytime sky, teradactyl flying, etc.). The reconstructed dinosaurs are situated amongst a very realistic jungle setting with really convincing sound effects (thunder, rain, dinosaurs roaring, jungle noises). They also have a re-created Dino dig site where the kids can actually work on digging up a dino. skeleton, a Paleo lab, and a neat play area complete with dinosaur costumes for dress up. (These were Giggly Girl's favorite!)

After spending quite a lot of time there, we coaxed the children into moving on to other parts of the museum. (I think they would have been content to stay in Dinosphere the whole afternoon!) We toured all four stories, but I have a feeling that there were still some things we did not see (and we were there for 4 hours). I told Marcy that if we lived even an hour closer I would by an annual pass. O.K., so as you can see, I highly recommend this Children's Museum if you're in the area (or even within a couple hours' drive). Here are just a few of the adventures from our day:

All of the kids had a blast together, as did the Moms! Ben, Luke, Madison, and Ella quickly became best buddies, and we look forward to hopefully seeing them at a Mid-west FIAR get-together in Louisville really soon!

So there you have it - our very first field trip of the year, and it was a winner.

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• Sep. 10, 2007
Tidbits

On Friday and Saturday we had more fun with our dinosaur activities. First we read If the Dinosaurs Came Back by Bernard Most. (This author has a lot of great dinosaur books that we've found at the library. Most that I've found don't conflict with Creationism.) This book is a fun depiction of the things dinosaurs could help people do if they were alive today. The pictures are cute and really help you get an idea of the sizes of different dinosaurs compared to other things like houses, mountains, buildings, cars, etc. This kicked off a lesson in measuring. We went out in the backyard, and with Daddy's help we used a (very long) tape measure to mark off the lengths of various dinosaurs. We taped the beginning and end of each measurement so that we could have a visual to help us compare each one. We also measured the kids, so that they could see that some dinosaurs were close to their size while others were as long as our house! They really got a kick out of this. Then we colored a graph to show the measurements we had made.

On Saturday we read from What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? by Ken Ham. This book is a bit much for my 4 year old, but my 6 year old son begged for me to read the whole thing to him at the beginning of the week. It uses Biblical evidence to answer a lot of common questions about dinosaurs. We read the section on fossils, and then used modeling clay to make fossil imprints with chicken bones, shells, and coins. The kids had never worked with modeling clay, so they enjoyed this part of it. (Although what they really wanted to do was make bowls and cups instead of fossils!) We were going to use the imprints later in the weekend to make cast fossils with plaster of paris, but we ran out of time. We'll try to do this either tomorrow evening or on Wednesday.

Tomorrow we are going on a field trip! We're headed to the Indianapolis Children's Museum to meet up with Marcy from the FIAR boards and a friend of hers who also uses FIAR. Marcy's son Ben is close to Superhero's age, and her friend's daughter is close to Giggles' age, so they should have a ball together! We will get to see the museum's dinosaur exhibit, one of the largest in the country. I've heard a lot of rave reviews about these dinosaurs, so I am really excited for us to be able to see this exhibit. Tomorrow night I'll try to post pictures of our adventures there!

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• Sep. 4, 2007
Bones, Bones, Bones!

First things first, Sweet Pea is feeling better. She is still running some fever, but I think the antibiotics are kicking in. Bless her heart, as yucky as she must feel, she still has such a cheery little demeanor, laughing and talking as usual.

Meanwhile on the homeschool front, we read Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones! by Byron Barton. This is a cute book that is a great way to introduce what a paleontologist does. (Even the 1 year old wanted to sit in on it.) Afterwards, we looked at some reconstructed dinosaur skeletons online, and then we got to be paleontologists ourselves (O.K., the kids - not me! But I did have fun hiding the bones.) I got a box of dog biscuits and hid most of them outside in the mulch. I gave the kids each a bag and a plastic shovel and told them to go looking for dinosaur bones. They ate this up! It was like an Easter egg hunt to them. After they collected all of the bones they took them inside (back to the museum like they did in the book) and "reconstructed" their dinosaur. They worked together pretty well. We talked about how sometimes paleontologists don't find the whole skeleton, and they have to make some "fake" bones to fill in the blanks. Well, we were short a head (er..skull), so we had to fabricate our own. The kids decided that our dino. was a triceratops, so they each drew different parts of his skull - the head, frill, 3 horns, etc. I cut them out, Superman drew a face (which is a big deal for this boy who does not like art), and we taped it all together and carefully placed it on our skeleton.  They both really enjoyed this. (This idea and the suggestion to read the Bones book came from Ami's Dino. unit at HSS. I highly recommend checking out this unit if you have a student who is interested in dinosaurs!) Here are some pics. from our dino. dig.

While the girls were taking afternoon naps, Superman and I read What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs? Then he chose a dinosaur, we researched it together, and he dictated some info. to me to put in his dinosaur book that he is making. I wasn't sure if he'd get into this, but he was really interested and only bawked at cutting out his dino's photo to paste in. Once he got started though, he even enjoyed the cutting and was so proud of his work!

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• Sep. 3, 2007
The Best Laid Plans...

Well it was back to school for us today, and despite a batch of mis-shapen dinosaur pancakes, a sick toddler, and a few other mishaps, it turned out to be a fun and productive first day.

We managed to do most of what I had planned for the morning before I decided that I needed to take our feverish toddler to the ER. (Yes, our pediatrician and all of the nearby urgent cares were closed today.) As it turns out the poor thing has strep throat.  She was so tired after our long ER visit, but she is sleeping soundly now while her Daddy has gone to get her antibiotics. We're praying that the meds. will kick in tonight, and she'll be feeling better in the morning.

So here is what we did on the first day of Kindergarten and 4-yr. Preschool. Our unit for the next two weeks is Dinosaurs! I'm using a lot of ideas from the Dinosaur Unit on the Homeschool Share site thanks to Ami! When the children came down to the kitchen this morning they were truly surprised and delighted to see the dino. display on the table.  (This is an idea I got from several ladies on the Five in a Row boards. I began to do these displays last year to kickoff our various units, and they were a huge hit in our house.)

For breakfast we made dinosaur pancakes. Superman and Giggly Girl helped with mixing the batter and even pouring it into the dinosaur pancake mold. The mold apparently works better in theory than in practice (either that or I wasn't using it correctly), so we ended up kind of trimming around it to make our dinosaurs. The children were very proud of these and wanted to make sure that Daddy saw them before they ate them all up!

During breakfast we read Psalm 8 and began memorizing the first verse. I chose this chapter since it fits so well with God's amazing creation, part of which were the dinosaurs! Then we read a fun book titled Dinosaurumpus by Tony Mitton. This was enjoyed by all, and I have a feeling it will be requested again and again. Then I told the Creation story using our flannegraph set, and the children always love this! (I've only used the felts a few times, mainly because it's taken me forever to get them all cut out, but thanks to my mother, they are finished and will get much use for years to come.) We talked about God creating dinosaurs on day 6 along with the other animals, and Superman asked many good questions.

Next it was time for art. We decorated letter D cutouts with dinosaur footprint stamps, letter D stamps, and dino. stickers. Giggly Girl, who loves to color and do crafts, thoroughly enjoyed this, and even though Superman  usually bawks at the mention of art, he really got into this too. We wrapped up the whole morning by listening to a Buddy Davis song, I Know All the Dinosaurs. There was much clapping, dancing, and giggling going on during this. What a great song!

Typically I'll do reading, handwriting, and other various things with Superman during the girls' afternoon naps, but today we had to forego that for the ER visit. Thankfully my Mom is here visiting, so she pulled out some new Crayola Color Wonder stuff to occupy the older two while I took Little One to the doctor. (And wouldn't you know the first two pictures in the Color Wonderbook were both Dinosaurs! The kids had so much fun coloring these with the special "magic" markers.)

Today could have been a real disaster, but through the chaos we managed to have some fun and actually get our first official day of Kindergarten under our belt - thank you, Lord, for small miracles!

I hope you've enjoyed my first blog entry. Thanks for taking the time to read about our adventures. Other folks' blogs have encouraged and inspired me so much as a homeschooling mama and wife, and I look forward to sharing here with you.

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