So in celebration of FINALLY getting back on board with our (hopefully) daily dinosaurs with Emanuel I am posting a few of the ones that have been awaiting editing and such to go up on the site!!! So please enjoy a look back at our own personal paleontology internet dig.

Some dinosaurs are simply interesting to look at, and the head of the Pachycephalosaurus is no exception. Found in the forests of North America, this herbivore had some of the carnivore characteristics that remind us of the T Rex… the upright posture, the smaller front legs… From the Cretaceous period, this was the largest of its species and while its head could have been used to fight it is actually believed that the Pachycephalosaurus would have made use of its large hind legs by running away.

Now for videos… the first is a question and answer period with Dinosaur George. Sadly, the link he gives for the intriguing Dracorex does NOT work.

Our second video was an unrealistic but entertaining excerpt from a dinosaur game… Trinity and Emanuel enjoyed it at least.

And now for the link list…

• KidsDinos.com HERE
• Animal Planet HERE
• Jurassic Park Wiki HERE
• 3D History HERE
• Dinosaurs.about.com HERE
• EnchantedLearning HERE
• National Geographic HERE
• Wiki HERE
• And our colouring page at Dinosaur-Colouring.com HERE
  

  So bright

We do love our Chinese New Year celebrations. All thanks to some of the family we chose… specifically the den Otters! So even here in Minnesota we do our best to hold onto the new traditions we added to our family while in Alberta. One of these is to spend a month on China, Chinese New Year and Chinese characters. This year we chose to do another poster… and of course with that comes a boatload of resources!

Books!

• Celebrating Chinese New Year by Diane Hoyt-Goldsmith
• Chinese New Year by Alice K. Flanagan
• Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations Chinese New Year by Ann Heinrichs
• Sam and the Lucky Money by Karen Chinn
• Children Just Like Me Celebrations by Anabel Kindersley
• I Wonder Why Countries Fly Flags by Philip Steele
• Kai-Lan’s Great Trip to China by Mickie Matheis
• Pandas by Donna K. Grosvenor
• Chinese New Year by Lola M. Schaefer
• Max Celebrates Chinese New Year by Adria F. Klein
• A Gift by Yong Chen
• The Runaway Wok by Ying Chen Compestine
• Chinese New Year by Fay Robinson
• Asian Holidays by Faith Winchester
• National Geographic Kids March 2014 issue (special focus on twin baby pandas)
• Celebrate Chinese New Year by Carolyn Otto
• Happy Chinese New Year, Kai-Lan! by Lauryn Silverhardt

Videos!

• Celebrate With Kai-Lan! HERE
• Ching’s Chinese New Year HERE

Our general helpful links!

• Activity Village is the place to go for printables! First Chinese New Year itself list HERE.
• The Horse of the Zodiac specifically HERE.
• China specific HERE.
• And of course the horse as an animal HERE.

Chinese Flag!

• Gotta cover the flag right? You can find out printable HERE thanks to Rainbowkids.com.
• If you want to find out some history on the flag check out this link HERE thanks to the site A China Family Adventure.

Dragon Dance!

• GMA News Online’s image for 2014 HERE. What a gorgeous looking dragon!
• And then there was the video we watched. I do so love watching the dances. This one was done in Hong Kong in 2013. The dancers are AMAZING and well worth a watch. Thanks to HongKongMap on youTube.

Chinese Music/Instruments! We did not cover a ton on the music. More of a surprise addition when I came across a neat picture of what is commonly called a guitar. So I grabbed a couple website, some music and an image to colour.

• The YueQin on Confucius Institute Online HERE
• Top 10 Chinese Instruments on China Whisper HERE. This girl was amazing. Thanks to NoodlesFaced on youTube. This is XiaoMu Ming.

• Our second video was of some traditional Chinese music entitled Shepherdess’ Song. Thanks to MadePossible on youTube. 

• Our original printable that started this train of interest is found on Rainbowkids.com HERE. They have a great list of resources on their site HERE. It is an adoption site with some great printables for kids. 

The horse itself!

• Animal Facts HERE thanks to Science Kids.
• More facts and breed information on Ducksters HERE.
• A great video of wild horses thanks to National Geographic.

• Zander wanted to know all about the world’s tallest horse so I had to help him out and check into that fact. HERE Guinness World Records site.
• A great list of horse related crafts thanks to Activity Village HERE.

Check out some Zodiac predictions for 2014 HERE. (Huffpost Living Canada)

Links for the three places of interest covered by Ken and the kids:

• Terracotta army thanks to Ducksters HERE
• Great Wall of China thanks to Science Kids HERE
• Shanghai Tower thanks to Wiki HERE
• 

October 22-24

We are onto our next big countdown – HALLOWEEN! Where has the year gone??? First Halloween, then Thanksgiving (American) and then CHRISTMAS! I am so not ready! We started our day with a gift… Gammie has already started sending the Christmas presents to hide until THE DAY and included in the boxes have been a few extras… I think we opened a couple the week before. But this one was a request item… a tiny ring-tailed lemur. Only our VERY FAVOURITE of all the animals really. This one was a dog toy so Echo is totally enamoured with it… it SQUEAKS!

With our regular morning routine accomplished Nana, myself and the girls had a special errand to accomplish. The weather has of course changed over to fall and sandals are out. Both girls have grown and honestly Echo has never had a true pair of sneakers… so off we were to find some! Kohl’s had a 30% off coupon and Nana was on a mission. Two stores later and a worn out Echo and we were MORE than successful. Not only did we find adorable LIGHT UP shoes for each but we ALSO found coats for the cousins AND long sleeved MINECRAFT themed shirts for the boys! Add to that lunch at McDonald’s and our girly time was a total success!!! Thank you Nana!!! (Oh, did I mention… matching adorable 3 piece girly outfits for the ladies themselves!)

With milk

Matching!

Gavin actually requested a special mini project for himself – pictures, video and (my input) a short story about ring-tailed lemurs. We watched a National Geographic video.

And Globalzoo’s video simply titled The Ring-Tailed Lemur.

Our colouring page could be found on HonkingDonkey (what a name!!) HERE. I love it when they take initiative and WANT to do something a little unique and interesting to them personally.

We hit midweek with not too much drama. Special movie time though – Monsters Vs. Aliens.

And a science project with Daddy dealing with oil and water and why polar bears are not cold! Again spot the secondary parental teacher!!!

Well sort of out of screen

There was even time for some play time, chaotic and totally us!

BUT even more important… KEN TURNED 36!!! Since I am on a total spending freeze there was no present buying… so the kids and I wrote stories, drew pictures and yours truly wrote a letter for him which we made into a book. I do love handmade creations and the words in that book came from all of us to him with love.

Happy Birthday Ken!

After celebrating a very special birthday it was time to move onto a big completion… our Egypt unit made its way (finally) onto the poster. We worked together and did our very best to showcase our Ancient Egypt fun! Of course I have a reference blog entry that you can check out HERE.

We ended our day with making white paint footprints we will later make into ghostly images.

I am well pleased with our progress in almost everything! We have our ups and downs but if I can look  back and recount these positive moments I KNOW we are doing it right!!!!