Well we are still averaging a dinosaur or prehistoric animal a week. Dinosaur Train HERE has become an amazing resource for finding those interesting creatures we have yet to cover. I have to say, I love how vocabulary building the world of the prehistoric is… all of the kids are rather clear (minus Echo) on what carnivore is and quick to describe what features differentiate between close species.
The Mosasaur was an interesting one. Again we found it on our Dinosaur Train list. Their site has a great section dedicated to going through each of the dinosaurs covered on the show in some detail. Their field guide HERE. You will have to look through them to find our specific dinosaur of the day!
We had a few links of interest all about this aquatic carnivore. This lizard was a top ocean predator which were thought to have evolved from snake like lizards that left the land and returned to the ocean…
And now for something completely different… well sorta!
We have covered dinosaurs and reptiles that were NOT dinosaurs but this is our first mammal! With the fossils unearthed earlier this month I just could not resist teaching Emanuel (and in the end Zander as well) about the Woolly Mammoth! You can read all about the rather unusual find in France HERE with a video or a simply textual with the National Post HERE. Either way, a rather amazing find. The only dissapointment I found with the research on this creature is that the main focus of the videos was on a hoax of a debunked image of a so called living specimen (I do believe it turned out to be a bear with a fish or something) and another batch talked about ALIENS being the cause of their extinction… so we stuck with the I’m a Dinosaur video on youTube and the one about the French find.
As well as a rather good but short BBC Science one.
In addition I have a long list of links to share so I figure I should get right to that! Enjoy our information about our last Ice Age mammal! First off there are some AMAZING images of a frozen specimen found in Siberia back in 2009! You can find those HERE. There was actual fur, skin… all of that. What we found most interesting was the smaller ears and tail to keep warmth in and the more nimble trunk and long tusks to allow for food collection!
Discovery has another article on this amazing find but a young boy in Siberia HERE. Apparently this is not an unheard of occurrence, unlike the surprise in France. As the weather at the time of death for the Mammoth was ideal for freezing. National Geographic Kids has a nice printable card and article HERE (if we had colour toner I certainly would have, I plan to return to this site later and do so). eHow.com has a short blurb about the history of the Mammoth HERE.
A site called Interesting Facts has… well… interesting facts about the Woolly Mammoth HERE. Dinosaurs.about.com has their usual 10 questions HERE. Fossil Treasures of Florida has some information and what looks to be an example of fur HERE. AnimalsTime.com has a great article HERE. EnchantedLearning has an article about this late Mammoth HERE. Wiki has the usual article HERE. And you can find out print out that Emanuel coloured HERE.
