Tag Archive | Google

Enantiornithine… Not a Dinosaur!

Back to rather old saved posts before I face the October resize. Enjoy this NOt dinosaur!

But a bird found during the age of dinosaurs. The enantiornithine died out at the end of the Cretaceous period but was common during the Mesozoic era. With feathers and teeth, this omnivore has been found as small as a sparrow and as big as a turkey. Toted as the possible origin of feathers and birds… this prehistoric bird has been a creature of interest for some time. They are thought to be found everywhere but Antarctica, virtually all over the Pangea.

We came across the enantiornithine on Dinosaur Train so of course we had to hunt more. This bird was a wonderful creature to restart our dinosaur odyssey. We had one good video that both Emanuel and Gavin enjoyed. PL3_Bird_Enantiornithine Birds by Walter Jahn.

Our second video was more a peek at a rendering on the Dinopedia for Walking With Dinosaurs. An image from their opening HERE. Of course this bird is also featured on Dinosaur Train. You can watch them on PBSkids.org. Or Netflix of course. We found our best images on Google WERE Dinosaur Train. I simply did a Google search for enantiornithine  or enantiornithine  dinosaur train and clicked images.

We had a few links. Some were too advanced for my current learners but I have included them here all the same out of interest sake.

  • Random Thoughts has a… random thought about our bird HERE.
  • Dinosaur Train’s Field Guide… click search and find our bird HERE.
  • Dinosaur Train Wikia HERE.
  • Answers in Genesis has an article HERE.
  • Phys.Org HERE.
  • Wiki article HERE.
  • A Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology HERE
  • Our colouring page came from deviantArt. We used it to trace out our dinosaur and paste it on a scene the boys drew… Thanks to Albertonykus HERE.

India, a Resource Project

Ok another WAAAAAAY delayed post, no images just resources. (I fib, one image of a sari skirt I splurged on for this year’s wardrobe. The colours of India are AMAZING!) I am determined to get my bum in gear and get these posts up in a more timely manner. But for today, humble pie. I should have had this up half a year ago!!! Check back tomorrow as I continue to prove to my kids that even MOM finishes EVERYTHING (within reason…) she starts! 

 

So we had these grand plans to do a family project on India in a timely manner, oops. But we did spend a summer and then some learning about a very distinct and colourful country and I will try and share the links, books, etc that we used. And then I took a lifetime and a half to post this post

First off. Google is your friend. We spent a lot of time searching for pictures for topics to colour. Mandalas, saris, the Taj Mahal. There are all sorts of colouring pages out there.

Since my resource list is a bit weak this time around, here is the list of topics the kids chose from. I gave them the option to pick and chose and varied the expectations of report content and length according to each child. So Trinity would do a list of facts vs. Zander having paragraphs or Echo colouring a picture.

  • Globe location
  • Government – levels, type, capital, voting rights
  • Country – independence, languages, time zones, founding, state/provinces
  • Landscape – mountains, water bodies, landmarks, position on map
  • Climate – seasons, one week of comparative weather, snow, natural disasters
  • Animals – unique to country – we chose one to do a report on
  • Plants – unique to country
  • Agriculture – most prevalent and where
  • Food – famous for
  • Symbols/emblems – flag, official symbols
  • Religions – main religions
  • Currency – what is used, exchange rate to USD, when it came into use
  • Main groups of people – who are they, caste system, poverty vs. rich numbers
  • School – minimum grade required, types
  • Inventions
  • Imports/exports/economy – what are the main ones
  • Sports – most popular
  • Holidays – major holidays
  • Music and crafts – most common, popular, make some
  • Tourism/Famous people
  • Choose a topic

Books were an important resource. Here is my short list. Libraries really are life saving

  • India by Manina Chatterjee
  • Focus on India by Bojang Brownlie
  • Taj Mahal by Linda Tagliaferro
  • India ABC’s by Marcie Aboff
  • Welcome to India by Patric Ryan
  • India by Don Nardo
  • India by Joanne Mattern
  • The Mauryan Empire and India by Ellis Roxburgh
  • India by Julie Murray
  • India by A. Kamala Dalal
  • Living in India by Chloe Perkins

For a fun activity we tried out making Henna decorations on paper hands as explained by Activity Village HERE. Education.com is always a help HERE.  Beyond the Henna activity Activity Village has a whole selection of resources HERE.IMG_20180328_150104_136

The Boston Tea Party… Resources

After working our way forward from the Declaration of Independence to the abolishing of slavery we went back to the near beginning of it all with The Boston Tea Party. This was a Trinity’s choice topic. She had heard about it in passing and was very interested in finding out why “so much yummy tea was wasted.” Yup, my frugal little girl was quite put out by what she saw as an avoidable waste. “Why didn’t they just take it home, or tell them to take it back?”

So we based our unit on the DVD series Liberty’s Kids. It often goes on sale on Amazon. This 40 episode series is a great way to look at the events leading up to US independence. We actually plan to watch all the episodes over time and continue our biographies based on each featured person from history. We found a form sheet for our biographies thanks to Template.net. They have varying levels of difficulty and format to chose from. We specifically chose THIS ONE.

There was a nice selection of books to choose from at our local library.

We found a free lap book set up thanks to Homeschool Helper Online HERE. I used Liberty’s Kids worksheets as well at StarMaterials.com HERE.

For more helpful suggestions check out More Than A Homeschool Mom HERE, Teachers Pay Teachers free resource HERE and HERE. The site Mrs. Nussbaum has a reading comprehension sheet HERE

Hopefully this will help anyone else who is working on such an interesting topic, my big suggestion is GET THE DVD! The Liberty’s Kids is interesting and fun. 20170626_134110

One of our mini biographies.

One of our mini biographies.

Helpful worksheet. If I have not linked all that I use, a quick google search is awesome.

Helpful worksheet. If I have not linked all that I use, a quick google search is awesome.

This entry was posted on 26/06/2017, in Uncategorized. 2 Comments