Tag Archive | iPad

Lystrosaurus

You do NOT want to know how old these resource posts are!! EEP! But we did love every minute of our dino journey. Sadly I was not on the ball and pre-loading a cute kid pic for this one. BUT I hope the info comes in handy! 

The “shovel lizard” Lystrosaurus came to our attention strictly by looks! It straddles the reptile and mammal (like) groups with its unusual characteristics. This VERY successful animal was found all over the world. A herbivore, it was found in the early Triassic period with concentration of fossils in Southern Africa, Asia and interestingly enough… Antarctica! The size of a pig, it is stout and short… ran on four legs and quite the comical looking creature. You can also see this dinosaur on the iPad app Fantastic Dinosaurs HD.

Our video is called Walking With Monsters: Clumsy Lystrosaurus posted by Hritzness.

And for our links… for such a prolific dinosaur we really had a limited number!

  • Dinosaurs.about.com HERE
  • KidsDinos.com (which has the era for the dinosaur at a slightly odd place) HERE
  • Prehistoric Wildlife HERE
  • Animal a Day HERE
  • Wiki HERE
  • And our colouring page from Super Coloring HERE

Prestosuchus

Sorry there is no image for this one… Just links etc. But one more long due post is up and running! Enjoy the random dinosaur facts in July! 

Emanuel does enjoy the unusual dinosaurs. I went onto Fantastic Dinosaurs HD, the iPad app and picked out one of the weirder Triassic critters. The Prestosuchus is neither a dinosaur or a crocodile but something called an archosaur. Found in Brazil, it had very powerful legs and was thought to be a fast runner. A carnivore, it was quite the scary looking creature.

Our video for the day was Dino Moments Prestosuchus WMV. I will warn you there is a screen shown from 45-56 seconds of the individual (Stephen Pearl’s) website link and such that I did NOT peruse. What interested us was the images from the Royal Ontario Museum’s exhibit.

And now for our link list…

  • Dinosaurs.about.com HERE
  • Dinosaurs.wikia HERE
  • The Forgotten Archosaurs HERE
  • ReptileEvolution.com HERE
  • Wiki HERE
  • Our colouring page came from deviantArt, but a new artist for us… SommoDracorex. You can find the image we used HERE and the artist’s page HERE.

A Hunting We Will Go… LOTS

May 18-23

We spent a large chunk of our Sunday out on the hunt for treasure… and for a good park! The girls decided to go matching on their excursion. We actually found a special geocaching coin that travels and is tracked. It has been all over the US an now it is our turn to pass it along!!101_7506

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Chipmunk!

Chipmunk!

Pioneer Park

Pioneer Park

So swampy everywhere!

So swampy everywhere!

We have continued our watching of Veggie Tales when we can get our hands on them. So on a cloudy Monday it was a great filler between the rest of our ongoing learning of Texas, reading, writing and math. Sadly we are running out of shows that include a set of Sunday School worksheets to use. So instead we drew our own fun pictures.101_7522

That evening Ken worked on teaching the boys Agricola (HERE) another strategy game that I honestly am not a huge fan of. The additional reading, challenging game play all seems to be helping them stretch their skills more and more.101_7521

Tuesday was a nature walk in our very own neighbourhood. Keeping our eyes wide open for some more signs of spring… discussing road safety and the difference between planned plants and weeds. I think in June or July we will do a walk through the neighbourhood and see if we can get a bunch of different leaves and try and identify what trees are actually local to us. Which gives the little guys the chance to do a favourite activity – leaf rubbings!101_7542

101_7546Of course around lunch time we had to head back outside to enjoy the backyard. Really we were stuck indoors way too long this winter!101_7548

101_7549Art for Kids has put tons of wonderful how to’s out for us to enjoy. (link on right) Even Trinity is gaining confidence with the use of these.101_7552

101_7554101_7555Miss Echo was quite adamant that it was an ipad anime day for her. I really do love my Crunchyroll membership. Affordable and fun for me too. Granted she doesn’t understand anything being said and can’t read the translation but she bops to the music and enjoys the animation.101_7556

We tried something different for mid week. Of course we continued reading Treasure Island together.101_7557

But I had Ken make me up a nice set of charts for us to go onto the ipad and use my weather app to chart the week coming up weather local to us and for Austen Texas. Using this comparison we opened the table for a discussion about how activities and such would differ for the days there than here. Then for each day recorded the twins settled in with a sibling and wrote basically a daily diary for what they would do in Texas according to the weather. Zander was super creative and one day played out in the rain only to have to stay in the next sick with a cold!101_7558

We dug out our box of fraction magnets just to enjoy the manipulation of the pieces and to see how they look as actual objects. The boys were discussing and quizzing each other and explaining to the littles so I just sat back and let them go at it (as long as the information was CORRECT!).101_7560

We rounded off our outside experience on scooters, bikes and fancy skateboards. Sunshine sunshine SUNSHINE!101_7562

101_7563101_7564101_7565101_7568Trust me we really ARE doing sitting down book work interspersed with LOTS of outside running and burning of energy. Gavin has been taking charge of the camera occasionally and taking pictures too! Mommy in front of the camera instead of behind!!101_7577

101_7579Emanuel and I stole some afternoon creativity time on Wednesday and made a car ramp out of stuff in the livingroom while the other kids went on a walk with Nana and Baba. It is nice to have some quiet one on one time with the kids.101_7581

We ended our school week with ANOTHER Geocache adventure to a small park with a terrific tree shaded walking path. The boys are definitely the ones to jump up and go into the woods. We girls tend to wander the paths closer too and enjoy the more tick and branch free portion of the experience. That is not to say that Trinity does not jump on in from time to time though!

101_7584101_7585We are certainly seeing portions of Minnesota that Ken hasn’t even seen. There are some absolutely amazing out of the way tiny lakes and pretty shaded places. And we are seeing all of this together which is absolutely another plus. One thing we have learned from all the sessions Ken is now doing with his counselor is that going out as a family and enjoying an activity is absolutely crucial for all of us! That time together getting out, exercise coupled with the ability to spend POSITIVE time as a family. Amazing!101_7561

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And a touch of Texas facts

And a touch of Texas facts