Tag Archive | Texas

Company On Top of Company

August 18-24

The girls are over the moon with their mini fashion shows. We are so spoiled that Gammie can and does send us so many outfits.101_9281 101_9285 101_9287 101_9313 101_9317

In celebration of Jeff being here AND he and Daddy being busy in the sub basement we had an outside lunch on the front stoop.101_9289

Right after that I realized that We had missed a rather special LARGE present that had been mailed previously from Texas. I think she got the most excited opening this one. The way it was rigged up the large caterpillar sort of popped out for her. Instant favourite.101_9290 101_9291 101_9295

That evening we had special plans. Jeff headed out with Chris for beers and visiting and the rest of us were off to Aunty Judy and Uncle Jim’s for a special family celebration of Echo’s 4th birthday complete with a cake made especially for her by Uncle Jim! He works for the Pilsbury company and makes an AMAZING cake!101_9301 101_9303 101_9304

I really can’t think of a place the kids get more excited about visiting than “Robbie’s House” and he wasn’t even there that visit!20140818_204537 20140818_191820 20140818_174959 20140818_194011 20140818_194035

In the morning the kids pitched in and worked on Echo’s birthday present from Jim and Judy – a Barbie lego set! With a little blue pool.101_9305 101_9310

We continued our learning… mostly shark related…101_9311 101_9314

And then we paid each of the kids and extra dollar of allowance to spend the week pulling weeds! What an efficient crew we had out there from the biggest to the smallest.101_9308

And the guys continued their gaming… interspersed with cleaning out of the sub basement. This all went SUPER well until they were at the tail end and found… a leak. Sigh. I am so proud of Ken for jumping in an working so hard to create space and organization in our world. This new and improved healthy Kenny is AMAZING.101_9283

We had company on Wednesday, well additional company. Robbie and Alicia came over for dinner and gaming. The kids are in love with these two, rightfully so. And it is doubly amazing that they can enjoy boardgames with us.101_9319 101_9321

101_9329I found a spare moment and finished up a special wallet for my Renaissance Festival outfit. It will loop around my handle so that I won’t lose my ID etc. I love it, I altered a basic billfold style wallet pattern to fit what I needed and there you go – no lost nothings when I go out this year!101_9322

There was time for playing outside AND checking out the garden with our guests.101_9323

101_9325 101_9326All this while Ken and Jeff made us dinner – Curry and a yummy sort of pudding pie. SPOILED US!!!101_9328 101_9327

On the 21st you can check back and see our Treasure Box we got in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa Mike HERE. We evened that day out with Munchkin (game) and time outside.101_9341

All the weed pulling led us to tweezers and patience as we removed burrs that attacked everyone pretty equally.101_9342

The kids have been loving another adult in the house. Especially one that knows all about Canada. Eases the homesickness a little, just like Grandma’s Canadian Treasure Box.101_9345 101_9351 20140816_175127

What a week!!!101_9358 101_9357

 

Really… can we keep Jeff forever? Because Ken has been so positive and the kids and I have enjoyed the company so much! We had all of Saturday and half of Sunday to enjoy with him and some lovely weather.

 

But then it was time to say good bye! Definitely a hard one… I don’t think anyone who visits us down here really realizes how much their visits and packages mean to us. A taste, touch, sound of home… thank you so much everyone for remembering us!

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Texas Dinosaurs

In my research about Texas I came across a great book that had a story about the life of dinosaurs in Texas. So of course we had to research some of the listed ones. We did this a little differently than Emanuel and I usually do it when we solo learn. Instead I read them the information and one of the twins wrote the main points. The other and Emanuel then coloured our picture. These are all going to go into our Texas binder when we finish our unit in the end of May. Our original source of our list was from the book Dinosaur Hunt by Karen Carr. You can get to our resource page HERE.

Our first dinosaur was the slower moving carnivore from the Cretaceous period the Acrocanthosaurus also known as Acro. This therapod was found in Texas, Oklahoma and Arizona. Potentially one of the smarter predators it went after slower moving dinosaurs mainly. Its front legs/arms were longer than a T-Rex’s and much more useful. Definitely a dinosaur to watch out for. For our links we used some old favourites and some new ones as well…

  • Jurassic Park Wikia HERE
  • EnchantedLearning HERE
  • Dinosaurs.About.com HERE
  • KidsDinos.com HERE
  • Age of Dinosaurs HERE
  • NaturalSciences.org has a great resource that we did not get to using for an activity guide. A little more in depth  than we wanted to go with a light overview with multiple dinosaurs. HERE
  • National Geographic Kids book page HERE
  • Wikipedia HERE
  • Our colouring page is from Education.com HERE

Dinosaur #2 was the Pleurocelus… a 4 legged herbivore also from the Cretaceous period. Found in Texas, Maryland and Utah it had longer front legs than back and so mimics the appearance of a giraffe. In fact, it is believed it may have walked on its front toes! It was a fitting meal for our Acrocanthosaurus. Of course we have links to share.

  • Dinosaurs.about.com HERE
  • DinoDictionary HERE
  • EnchantedLearning (mid page) HERE
  • Texas Parks and Wildlife HERE. They also had our colouring page HERE.
  • Wikipedia has a discussion about the actual name determination and defining  that we did NOT cover but you can read more about that under the article titled Astrodon HERE

Our third dinosaur was one that Emanuel and I had already covered – the Hypsilophodon. So we did a brief overview and jumped list on our backlogged dino posts to put up the one we covered you can read about that HERE. This plant eater was included in our dinosaurs of Texas book but I do admit to finding it placed mostly in Europe.

Our fourth and final dinosaur was the Coloborhynchus. This dinosaur was a flyer and amazingly enough has given us a NEW term for what it eats – a PISCIVORE… fish eater! Emanuel is PUMPED! A new term to hunt under. There is some rather contradictory information about it as apparently there is some dispute as to whether it is its own dinosaur or falls under another name. We did enjoy our rather limited information and of course seeing it in our dinosaur book. Our links…

  • Dinosaurs.about.com HERE
  • Prehistoric Wildlife.com HERE
  • Science Direct HERE
  • Wiki HERE and HERE
  • Many and varied images on my Google search HERE
  • Our colouring page thanks to deviantArt titled Coloborhynchus Attack by HondariNundu HERE.9780060297039
This entry was posted on 07/07/2014, in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

Texas… A Study of a State

Texas has become near and dear to our hearts with Gammie and Aunty Holly and Cousin Jimmie. So of course we had to jump in all the way and get going with a full on month long unit. Here are most (I hope) of the resources we used for our binder! Enjoy! Also check out our DINOSAUR related resource page HERE.

BOOKS!

  • Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch by Anne Isaacs
  • Texas by Jim Ollhoff
  • Texas by AV2
  • Texas by Ann Heinrichs
  • Dinosaur Hunt by Karen Carr
  • Life at the Alamo by Sally Senzell Isaacs
  • Texas Facts and Symbols by Emily McAuliffe
  • America the Beautiful: Texas by Ann Heinrichs
  • Texas Rangers’ Legendary Lawmen by Michael P. Spradlin
  • How to Get Rich on a Texas Cattle Drive by Tod Olson

VIDEOS!

    • Smithsonian Aerial America Texas HERE.
    • A special thanks to sisters Holly (my sister in law) and Heather (her sister) who are Texans to the core for these!

Davy Crockett thanks to Hanna Barbera… I did have to tell the kids that some of the terms and such was …. old fashioned? But you really got a feeling of how a person becomes a legend.

Ballad of the Alamo WITH LYRICS.

Confederate Song – The Yellow Rose of Texas

Fess Parker – Ballad of Davy Crockett (1955)

WORKSHEETS!

    • I have my Texas worksheets on Education.com collected under my Minnesota folder HERE (I know confusing but I never did get around to trying to rename it US States)
    • We covered a little bit of weather  too… mainly comparing our week to a week in Texas and talking about seasons but I have a few jr. print outs… From Worksheetplace.com HERE and Kinderhelper.com HERE
    • Colouring pages by TexasBob.com HERE
    • Texas – a Mini Unit Study by Learning Treasures HERE
    • State flag with EnchantedLearning HERE
    • Symbols of Texas with Kids’ House HERE
    • Homeschooling.About.com Texas unit study HERE
    • John Tyler worksheet thanks to Activity Village. In fact you can find other state heroes on this site just search under Texas (link to site on right)
    • Learning Treasures Mini Unit Study HERE

HELPFUL SITES!

    • We found an excellent definition for BIOMES when covering the different landscapes in Texas thanks to Geography4Kids.com HERE.
    • Lists of endangered and threatened animals in Texas. The boys loved some of the wild names on these! Texas Parks and Wildlife HERE.
    • We had a wonderful fact or fiction worksheet on Education.com (link above to folder) on Pecos Bill but were sent along to the Legends of America site HERE for another version of the legend which totally tickled the boys after our discussions about exaggeration and how “things are always bigger in Texas!”
    • A little summary on Davy Crockett… We wanted to find him in our books but really beyond him dying at the Alamo (or at least within some portion of the conflict) we had to go to the internet to learn more HERE thanks to The History Channel.
    • An overview with the climate in Texas (we supplemented with searching for pictures of each season) thanks to Wiki HERE.
    • The Alamo.org HERE… about… The Alamo!
    • The Legend of the Bluebonnets thanks to the site Multicultural Education Through Miniatures HERE.
    • What Are Myths, Legends and Folktales? Definitions thanks to Myths and Legends HERE.
    • Texas State Song: Texas, Our Texas thanks to Lone Star Junction HERE.
    • Texas state information page with EnchantedLearning HERE

Downloadables!

  • Texas The Lone Star State mini lapbook thanks to Fortunately For You Books (also for purchase on Currclick) HERE101_7775
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This entry was posted on 07/07/2014, in Uncategorized. 2 Comments