When life gets sunny and busy …. we walked two miles to the YMCA and two miles BACK HOME after spending 3 hours at various activities this past Tuesday… I run to my backlog… and it is time to get these dinos out! Enjoy! Sorry there isn’t a picture at the end but the resources are there for the using!

 

Emanuel has turned his focus from the land to the water… there are some absolutely nightmare inspiring critters from the time of the dinosaurs that lived  in the oceans! This short-necked plesiosaur had 4 flippers to propel itself through the water. Found in the Cretaceous period this marine reptile had a long and narrow jaw lined with sharp teeth. Nicknamed Dolly, the Dolichorhynchops is found all over North America. While they look like reptiles there are some resources that state they are definitely dinosaurs.

We have TWO videos this time… Sea Monsters 3 from National Geographic.

And Sea Monsters A Prehistoric Adventure 2007 from PrehistoricWorld2013.

And now for our links, there are a few articles I am including that we did not read through, but they may be interested for the older dinosaur fanatic! Enjoy!

• National Geographic HERE
• National Geographic images HERE
• Dinosaurs.about.com HERE
• KidsDigDinos.com HERE
• Prehistoric Wildlife HERE
• Dinosaur Facts HERE
• Wiki HERE
• Ezine Articles HERE
• Everything Dinosaur HERE
• And our colouring page is from Mesozoica Arts’ Flickr page HERE

So with our in depth examination of China the kids requested another country… Being all democratic (first mistake) I let them choose… even after extorting the amazing qualities of some European countries (ok so Mommy has some interests not yet tapped) I was out voted and we chose a month+ long focus of MEXICO!!!

This is another first for us. I the topics I thought would be interesting and made up pages for the twins (and the littles to a more limited extent) to chose from. Topics like Sports, Inventions, Capital City, the list goes on and on… so we shall see how giving some more independence and choices works with the kids… FINGERS CROSSED!

However I am still verifying all websites before they settle on them so I had some major work ahead of me. And of course I have some to share as well!! I will post them according to topic, the only order is the one chosen by the boys to cover!

GEOGRAPHY

• What hemispere is Mexico in? Ask.com has the answer HERE

SPORTS

• donQuijote.org has a short article HERE.
• we checked out further information on Lucha Libre thanks to Wiki HERE.
• VisitMexico.com has an interesting piece on Charreria HERE.

CAPITAL CITY – Mexico City

• Angel of Independence thanks to Mexico City – Guide HERE.
• CNN has 10 interesting facts about the city HERE.
• Discovering Ice… a travel blog has tons to share including personal experiences HERE.
• MexicoCity.com has a page HERE

DINOSAURS… yup we went there… Emanuel and Trinity and I!

• Our dinosaur list was found on EnchantedLearning HERE
• Gorgosaurus: a wonderful picture on deviantArt thanks to SommoDracorex HERE. Dino Hunt Canada with their “breathing” image HERE. EnchantedLearning facts HERE. Raresource HERE.
• Labocania: not a common dinosaur AT ALL… so this is the best I could do! Dinosaurs.about.com HERE, CoolDinoFacts Wikia HERE, RareSource.com HERE. BUT an amazing picture to colour thanks to deviantArt and hyphenatedsuperhero HERE.
• For Hypacrosaurus we used one site as our launching pad and clicked their links. VERY helpful. You can find our link HERE thanks to Dinosaur of the Week.
• Pterosaur: not so much a specific animal but a grouping of apparently NOT dinosaurs, so fun for the kids being as these were FLYING critters. EnchantedLearning HERE. SomeInterestingFacts.net HERE. And our colouring page on SuperColoring.com HERE.
• Lambeosaurus: A duck-billed dinosaur we had a few good resources we used – KidsDinos.com HERE, EnchantedLearning HERE, and our colouring page was from IAmFritz.com HERE.
• Apatosaurus: Our last dinosaur chosen to research… Science Kids HERE, Kids Dig Dinos HERE, EnchantedLearning HERE and our colouring page from Ducksters HERE.

PLANTS AND ANIMALS

• The National animal/bird is the GOLDEN EAGLE… and the plant the PRICKLY PEAR CACTUS. We found that out using Wiki HERE. Learn more about the Golden Eagle thanks to Sandiego Zoo HERE. And all about the Prickly Pear Cactus thanks to DesertUSA HERE.
• Endangered animal list thanks to Mexidata HERE.
• Of our list Zander chose TWO animals to research (online)… Axolotl was the first with three links: A-Z Animals HERE and National Geographic Kids HERE and Mother Nature Network HERE. It is crazy cool! The second was the Tigrillo or the Margay. We found various pages once we realized the secondary name so here is a quick list – Encyclopaedia Britannia HERE, SoftSchools.com HERE, PoC HERE, The Animal Files HERE.

TRADITIONAL CLOTHING

• Education.com worksheet for traditional clothing for both genders HERE.
• Facts about traditional clothing thanks to FactsAboutMexico.com HERE.
• Sombreros facts HERE thanks to ehow.

WEATHER STUDY

• Discuss the seasons on an informational site HERE.
• Learn about the rainy season on Mexperience HERE.
• Does it snow in Mexico? Find the answer from people who live there thanks to Yahoo Answers HERE.
• General climate information on Mexperience HERE.

ART, CRAFTS and ARTISTS

• Gavin did the research and write ups for this one. First Frida Kahlo, mainly from our book list but also from Wiki HERE.
• And her husband Diego Rivera, again mainly from our library finds and Wiki HERE. Our colouring page of one of his murals can be found HERE thanks to Scribble Blog.

LANGUAGE and PEOPLE

• Learn Spanish at Duolingo.com (app available too) HERE.
• Famous people born in Mexico list with links onward thanks to Biography.com HERE.

NATURAL DISASTERS

• An article of interest on the examination of an area in Mexico that experienced a massive drought for about 650 years thanks to NBC HERE.

AGRICULTURE

• Livestock numbers (from 2008) thanks to Answers.com HERE. We used this as an example of the types of common animals raised for food and other reasons.
• Learn about the Cacao plant and chocolate thanks to Wilderness Classroom HERE.
• A list of common plants to Mexico (short) thanks to ehow HERE.
• Plants of Mexico list (long) thanks to Backyard Nature HERE.
• Agriculture in Mexico thanks to Wiki HERE.

INVENTIONS

• We used this list on Wiki as a launching pad for researching 3 of them. Nothing fancy just a list of interest really HERE.
• A second list thanks to the site Latina HERE.

MEXICO INDEPENDENCE DAY

• SoftSchools.com has a wonderful page about the history of Mexico’s movement to independence HERE.
• KidzWorld.com has some information HERE.
• Globe In has 10 interesting facts about Independence Day HERE.

GENERAL FACTS

• A to Z Kids Stuff HERE.
• Duckster with some Mexico Geography HERE.
• Octavio Paz (famous individual) thanks to Wiki HERE.
• Chichen Itza thanks to SoftSchools HERE

RELIGION

• Mexconnect covers the history of Catholicism in Mexico HERE.

MUSIC AND DANCE

Tlacololeros a traditional Mexican dance… watch it below:

Mexican Hat Dance… check it out below:

CURRENCY

• A great image of the currency and explanation of how it works thanks to Focus on Mexico HERE.

COUNTRY STUDY… a great all over overview from Activity Village we are now using for any country we cover as more than a micro unit HERE.

MEXICO printable booklet, for purchase on TeachersPayTeachers HERE. Great for grades 1-3.

COLOURING PAGES and WORKSHEETS

• Mexican Revolution HERE thanks to Oncoloring.
• Know Your Neighbour HERE thanks to jumpstart.com.
• Spanish word book and more HERE thanks to Homeschool Share.
• Clothing colouring page HERE thanks to Coloring Book 4 Kids

BOOKS… boy did we have books!! I may have cleaned out 2 or three local library branches!! So enjoy the fruit of my requesting! I will try and point out the super useful or fun books with a bit of further information. After all, this is useful for me too when we chose to revisit a topic for the littles to learn more about!

• Cactus Soup by Eric A. Kimmel. This is a take on the stone soup idea set in Mexico during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1922). The kids picked up right away that it was a great lesson about sharing. Though the girls were VERY put out about the people lying about having things at first… not cool! Great book HERE.
• Little Egret and Toro by Robert Vavra. This is not a MEXICAN story but we chose to read this book because it was set in Spain and about a fighting bull. The whole concept of bull fighting and the ending of the fight in the death of the bull is visited. It does have a happy ending though! HERE
• Mexico by Gina DeAngelis (a common name for a lot of the books we borrowed but I will link each one if I can!): Many Cultures, One World. HERE
• Christmas Around the World by Emily Kelley HERE.
• P is for Pinata by Tony Johnston HERE
• Ancient Mexico by Kelly Campbell Hinshaw HERE
• A Look at Mexico by Helen Frost HERE
• Mexico by Sarah Tieck HERE
• Cultural Traditions in Mexico by Lynn Peppas HERE
• Mexico by Christine Juarez HERE
• Mexico by Deborah Kent HERE
• Mexico by R. Conrad Stein HERE
• The Boy Who Wouldn’t Obey: A Mayan Legend by Anne Rockwell HERE
• Food and Festivals Mexico by Linda Illsley HERE
• Mexico City by R. Conrad Stein HERE
• Countries of the World Mexico by Beth Gruber HERE
• Mexico in Pictures by Janice Hamilton HERE
• The Cooking of Mexico by Matthew Locricchio HERE
• Mexico! 40 Activities to Experience Mexico Past & Present by Susan Milord HERE
• Traditional Crafts from Mexico and Central America by Florence Temko HERE

AZTECS AND MAYANS – we only did a cursory discussion on these two groups but had a lovely stack of books for reading and enjoyment and of course the fact finding.

• Aztecs by David and Patricia Armentrout HERE
• Ancient Aztecs by Tim Cooke HERE
• Life Among the Aztecs by Eleanor J. Hall HERE
• Lost Temple of the Aztecs by Shelley Tanaka HERE
• The Aztecs by Tim Wood HERE
• The Maya HERE
• Houses & Homes by Tim Wood HERE
• Ancient Mayan Civilization by Nancy Day HERE
• Crafts From the Past – The Aztecs by Gillian Chapman HERE

MOVIES/DOCUMENTARIES

• Families of Mexico (Families of the World) HERE
• More Families of Mexico (Families of the World) HERE
• Travel With Kids Mexico HERE
• Ancient Aztec The Fall of the Empire (Ancient Civilizations for Children) HERE

I really enjoyed this unit and the kids seemed to learn and enjoy a lot too… Please enjoy the images from some of our finished work!

Here is a quick peek at our finished notebook/binder… sorry about the quality and the babbling!

So Discovery’s Shark Week has come and we got all caught up in the madness. I was liberal with my choices in taping for the kids and prewatched a few first (Submarine the massively huge shark special was deleted quickly) but we certainly got our fill on some excellent and not so excellent shows. I will include our watched list including one lucky Dirty Jobs find on Animal Planet that week. Just remember, some are more… ratings grabbers than truly educational pieces… though we found ANYTHING narrated by Mike Rowe was a goldmine for the kids. Of course, we fell in love with him on Dirty Jobs and the kids want to watch anything with him or his voice on it!

We watched quite a few shows

• Bull Shark: World’s Deadliest Shark
• Shark City
• Monster Hammerhead
• Shark Feeding Frenzy
• Great White Highway
• Lair of the Mega Shark
• Great White Invasion
• Return of Jaws
• Dirty Jobs, Season 4 Episode 18: Greenland Shark Quest
• Zombie Sharks
• Deadly Stripes: Tiger Sharks
• Sharkzilla (with people off Mythbusters)
• Jaws Strikes Back
• Alien Sharks
• Alien Sharks: Return of the Abyss
• Deadly Waters

We also branched out with some very brief reading on some lesser known sharks to write on the back of some shark images we printed from one of our saved files. I am including these sharks here:

• The Thresher Shark thanks to Shark Sider HERE. Gavin was especially interested in this shark due to its unusual tail that we later found out it uses to hunt! 
• The Whale Shark is one of Zander’s favourites. We found facts thanks to Animals Time HERE.
• The Nurse Shark thanks to National Geographic HERE. A rather interesting LARGE shark who really only eats microscopic items!
• The White Tip Shark thanks to The Telegraph HERE.
• The Lemon Shark thanks to Sharks-World HERE.
• There was a print out error in the square pictures and we did not have one for the Mako shark even though it was featured in other lists in the same print out. So we made our own slightly larger paper with a hand drawing and information we found at the EnchantedLearning site HERE.

Of course we went to our usual sources for Shark print outs etc and while we did not DO  a lot of crafts and settled instead for drawing our own pictures and having fun “what if” discussions we do have some links to help you out on your shark themed learning!

• Activity Village has a little bit of everything. Though we did not use their how to draw a shark instructions. You can find their general list of resources HERE.
• We used Art for Kids’ shark how to draw instructions for sharks  HERE. The kids loved the expression on this shark’s face! They also have Hammerhead instructions HERE. I do wish there was a print out page for this one as we love including the instructions in our finished folders and adding them to our overflowing binder of Art for Kids print outs.

For spelling words we started out the week with 10 general shark words:

1. shark 
2. swim
3. carnivore
4. eggs
5. fish
6. ocean
7. fin
8. gill
9. pup
10. teeth

For the second week I took the list of 10 most dangerous sharks from Angel Fire site HERE. For Trinity and Emanuel I just did two random shark related words a day. Emanuel’s favourite was hammer and head… the moment he said the two together he just lit up!

With some of the worksheets there were questions about shark anatomy. I found a decent list of fin information on the site KidCyber.com HERE.

We looked up two different terms for our studies… breaching where we  took the definition off the top of our good search HERE. Out second term was opportunistic feeders. We found our definition on the Merriam Webster site HERE.

We also did a quick animal report on the Remora. We figured we wanted to know more about this fish we continually saw in almost all of our Discovery channel shows. Sadly not much is known about certain aspects of the fish, BUT the site Animal Diversity Web had some interesting (if not complicated) information for us to use on our report HERE.

Emanuel has had an interest in the Cookiecutter Sharks since he saw them on Octonauts (HERE). So we did up a colouring page thanks to KidsPlayColor.com HERE. We used the information on EnchantedLearning HERE to do a quick write up on the back of our colouring page to include in our shark book. With over 200 species I am figure we will continue finding sharks of interest over the years!

We didn’t do much in the way of books as there was SO MUCH Discovery Channel content, but I did pull what we had on sharks out of our personal collection:

• Incredible Sea Creatures by Reading Discovery (a level 2 reader)
• Amazing Sharks by Melvin Berger
• Life in the Water – A Child’s First Library of Learning

I certainly hope all of this information can be of some help! Good luck!