Tag Archive | Siberia

A Very Woolly Character

And now for something completely different… well sorta!

We have covered dinosaurs and reptiles that were NOT dinosaurs but this is our first mammal! With the fossils unearthed earlier this month I just could not resist teaching Emanuel (and in the end Zander as well) about the Woolly Mammoth! You can read all about the rather unusual find in France HERE with a video or a simply textual with the National Post HERE. Either way, a rather amazing find. The only dissapointment I found with the research on this creature is that the main focus of the videos was on a hoax of a debunked image of a so called living specimen (I do believe it turned out to be a bear with a fish or something) and another batch talked about ALIENS being the cause of their extinction… so we stuck with the I’m a Dinosaur video on youTube and the one about the French find.

As well as a rather good but short BBC Science one.

In addition I have a long list of links to share so I figure I should get right to that! Enjoy our information about our last Ice Age mammal! First off there are some AMAZING images of a frozen specimen found in Siberia back in 2009! You can find those HERE. There was actual fur, skin… all of that. What we found most interesting was the smaller ears and tail to keep warmth in and the more nimble trunk and long tusks to allow for food collection!

Discovery has another article on this amazing find but a young boy in Siberia HERE. Apparently this is not an unheard of occurrence, unlike the surprise in France. As the weather at the time of death for the Mammoth was ideal for freezing. National Geographic Kids has a nice printable card and article HERE (if we had colour toner I certainly would have, I plan to return to this site later and do so). eHow.com has a short blurb about the history of the Mammoth HERE.

A site called Interesting Facts has… well… interesting facts about the Woolly Mammoth HERE. Dinosaurs.about.com has their usual 10 questions HERE. Fossil Treasures of Florida has some information and what looks to be an example of fur HERE. AnimalsTime.com has a great article HERE. EnchantedLearning has an article about this late Mammoth HERE. Wiki has the usual article HERE. And you can find out print out that Emanuel coloured HERE

Such a cool character with his Woolly friend

 

Remembrance Day And More

November 11-12

Remember Remember the 11th of November… Thank you to all service men past, present and future who make our WORLD a safer place. Though we may not understand motives, causes or reasons behind things, these wonderful and GIVING individuals give their ALL to keep our world safe and secure for ourselves and our children… Lives have been lost for causes great and small and it is those lives that we remember. Thank you!

And on that note – our thankful children for the day:

Trinity: my friends

Emanuel: the city

Gavin: having my mom and dad give me money to buy toys (is that a veiled hint??)

Zander: having people to play with

And apparently, today Echo is thankful for her Colour Wonder paper and time to colour with her sister.

Colouring together

Works of Art!

We did our moment of silence the day before as the morning went as I figured – Echo on a noise making rampage! I am so glad we took time yesterday to really try and grasp the concept of war and Remembrance of the men and women who sacrificed so much for us. We are careful to ensure that they understand it is not one or the other country’s army that is important but that the WORLD has people who fight to keep us all safe. After all these children are not one or they other. They are both Canadian AND American.

Our Canadian American 🙂 one of 5

Monday was a semi holiday for different people so I made the executive decision to go lighter on the kids… but of course we must first be thankful:

Zander: for ice cream

Gavin: for doing crafts with my Mom and Dad

Emanuel: the earth

Trinity: my Chococat

It was Zander’s turn to do the Gratitude turkey. Everyone gets REALLY excited when it is time to put another feather on.

Hello turkey

Today’s dinosaur was most definitely NOT a dinosaur… Due to the finding of an almost intact skeleton of a Woolly Mammoth in France of all places (such finds including fully frozen specimens are much more common in Siberia!) I just had to cover this amazing creature. You can find the article that brought this to our attention HERE. Thank you friend on Facebook. Zander joined us on our Woolly Mammoth investigation.

We finally got int the time to finish reading our Judy Moody book. And do the last of our Me Collage, colour some spiffy bandaids and of course get our fan club sheets! I have a folder that everything is going to go in. On Tuesday Zander and Gavin will glue the pictures we saved from the teacher print out to our front page! We used the Toys’r’Us Christmas flyer to cut out some favourite things and of course dug into the sticker box!

Certificates

Collages

Decorated Bandaids

Echo has been crazy busy with her crayons and papers. She comes over every so often and has me write her name over and over all over her picture! Such a proud little artist!

Echo’s Art

And we had ANOTHER set of instructions from Art for Kids! This time to make a snowman. I am  told that the nose placement on Gavin’s is all  the rage… at least that is where it looks COOL! We still have not had enough snow to make are real one. Which is just fine with me!

A bit Picasso?

Oh and don’t forget our poem practice!!

So cute!

Our week began rather well, I think! We are certainly finding things to learn about and keep ourselves busy. There are definitely days that I just wish I had another hour or two (thus probably why I keep accidentally staying up too late!).

I just can’t get over how grown up she looks at such a tiny size