RAWR DINOSAURS!!! Monsoon season hit and I soaked myself hopefully saving our tomatoes… and now have to make the difficult decision as to whether or not we walk to the YMCA tomorrow… so in the wake of all the “drama” I have for you… a dinosaur!!!!
Back into the ocean with our dinosaurs and a rather unique flightless bird… the Hesperornis. This Cretaceous period find had feathers and teeth in its “beak”… The remains of this intimidating swimmer have been found in many areas in Canada. With its diet of fish and squid it swims quickly and it has to… predators rule the oceans at this point in history.
Now for our videos. There is a couple episodes in Dinosaur Train that include our bird. But the only one I could get my hands on through the Prime account in the house for free was Episode 6 of Season 1. You can find the link HERE. Our second video is the last in a series that I do believe Gavin now wants to watch from the start. Sea Monsters – The Most Deadly Sea.
A new month begun and spring is… well I am told it is here but the weather is simply NOT working in our favour.
That did not stop garden progress though!
We had THREE Wild Kratts to enjoy!!!
Orangutan
Bird of Paradise
Jaguar
It was the first of the month so time to get our May poster put together!
MAY
And on our fact hunt about penguins realized that they can go up to 4 months without food, and are actually classified as seabirds, though unlike other birds their bones are dense and heavy instead of hollow… thus the amazing speeds in water! Penguinsby Lynn M. Stone has been a great resource.
Penguins!
Our Thursday dinosaur was inspired by a library book: Neovenator and other Dinosaurs of Europe by Dougal Dixon. We have already had to move our dinosaurs from a small binder to a D ring!
Our Book
Monday’s had our intrepid learners drawing their favourite dinosaurs. Trinity had to have some help but we are working on getting her outside of the kitty and girl box.
Favourites
Gavin created us a little diorama style Lego scene… penguins, scientist, fish (gray) and even more interestingly – krill (pinky red bits).
Lego
I love it that from time to time we are even having some moments of silence and contentment WITH electronics in play!
Together quietly
We had a series of interesting drawing suggestions from Art for Kids as well – all about ROBOTS!! The boys worked together to complete them all and made a rather interesting robot selection.
Robots
Mr. Popper and his penguins started in Seattle so we had to take a look at a tourist video (that honestly they were not as enthused about as I would hope but loved parts of) and see what there is to see in Seattle NOW.
We ended the week with less than favourable weather… so I pulled all the stops for lunch – hot chocolate, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches!!
NOMS
Our dinosaurs ended the week as a marathon event of free (with Amazon Prime) season 1 episodes from Dinosaur Train alternating with schoolwork accomplished. Emanuel worked on a lovely full page scene.
Quite the well thought out scene
We created our own advertisements for portions of Mr. Popper’s Penguins!
BUY FISH!
And then for supper, the kids helped me make pizzas.
Kid assisted dinner
It was a rather good 3 days leading into what was going to be a busy busy weekend.
Just like I promised, more Dirty Jobs today… Mattress Recycler (Season 4, Episode 7) where they… recycle mattresses (and remove old abandoned boats) can be watched (with Prime) for free on Amazon HERE. Our second episode was Chinatown Garbage Collector (Season 1, Episode 4) again Amazon (Prime for free) HERE.
Nana and Baba took just Trinity and Emanuel out for the morning, once they finished their letter and word practice of course!! It is so quiet with just 3 of the kids here! Especially when the twins are busy watching their Dirty Jobs.
We have continued our discussion with a list of things you can recycle…
bottles and cans
paper and cardboard
glass
metal
toilets
paint
old toys/teddies… repurpose OR gift
wood
mattresses
plastic
food (compost)
We have always been aware of the good you can do by passing things along and have not only been a passer but a passee. (Is that even a term??) There is no reason that a handmedown should be refused if it is useful! When we use what we or someone else already has we are making a smaller footprint and extending the life of items that would otherwise fill up our landfills.
Our Earth Week related book of the day (and the last one I have that is not a chapter book) is Earth Dayfrom the Let’s See company. This book is by Marc Tyler Nobleman. Today, in honour of conservation we did NOT print off anything specifically for this book or do a special page. Instead, we discussed what we learned and added to our list of things you can recycle on the back of our large brown paper page.. this paper is full up of information, both sides and once we are done will be used for a craft and then recycled. The kids are so proud of how we use BOTH sides of everything (scratch paper or scrap paper we call it here… so I can write out the sentences they tell me for them to in turn copy). We certainly cannot be paper free here but we are doing our best to make each scrap count! I am still determined to make paper with the kids this summer. We just need to get together our supplies and a sunny weekend for Ken to join in!
Earth Day
Our chapter book had a list of things the kids in the story needed to do to be a part of the Green Club… 10 things to conserve and clean the earth… Out of the 10 we have one left on the list to accomplish! Pick up 10 pieces of garbage. How many do you do on the list?
Use recycled items to make crafts
Turn off the lights, computers, etc
Turn off the water when you brush your teeth
Use reusable bottles for water (we use cups in the bathroom)
Pick up 10 pieces of trash (our mission!)
Bike or walk to school. We count this as done as we walk to parks, walk around the house and run outside for fun!
Use cloth bags at the grocery store (we also added in that when we get plastic or paper we use them for other things… I have a ball of plarn waiting for time to learn how to make something with it!)
Use BOTH sides of the paper… of course!!
Use cloth towels instead of paper in the kitchen
Take showers over baths (or if you are going to take a LOOONG time in the tub take that bath we agreed that a bath soak would use LESS water but showers ARE faster)
We did one of our two recycled 2 L bottle crafts… one will have to wait until the weekend and ken having more time. Our first craft is towards the end of the video list… a rain gauge. Now there are all sorts of problems with it, I am curious if we will keep up our initial water level… will it give a good reading? But that’s what an experiment is all about right???
With rain gauge
The twins and I took a moment to return to our penguin roots and look at an extra book. Without Emanuel I did not want to cover the next chapter in Mr. Popper’s Penguins. Our book was I am a Penguinby Karen Durrie. The twins took turns reading the book to me… we came upon a surprising fact that we had not seen before: “I keep my feathers dry with oil from my tail.” Definitely new to us!
I am a Penguin
Reading Together
We also made our very own penguin finger puppets. You can follow our instructions HERE. Though Ken winged it with his pieces and made his own pattern. Of course we had to wait to show them off properly until the next day.
Our pieces
Assembly
Penguins!
We had another penguin book as well… My Penguin Osbert by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel. We got together and drew an amazing penguin habitat!
Habitat
We were creative all over the place… the boys continued work on their boat… the girls made block towers…
Towers in pastels
I finished my infinity scarf and made it well… infinite! You can find the pattern I used HERE. Thanks to my Facebook friend Keith for the suggestion AND all the support while I worked it out!
Sorry about the picture.. I was so excited to finish it that I took it in my pj’s
We are certainly getting our earth facts down!!! I think next year when we do Earth Day/Week we will focus some time on what the earth is actually made of and its place in the universe as well!
Of course ECHO believes SHE is the center of the universe… and who are we to say she isn’t? hehe
