Dinosaur Dig - Week 1

Dinosaur Dig is right up our alley.  We have many dinosaur themed items around this house but we have gained some great additions to our collection so far this week.

Day 1 we learned about Paleontologists and received our Field Journal.  I gave Lachlan his journal with no instructions, just to see what he would do.  He loved it and started coloring right away.  Mother Goose Time provided them each with a small pack of crayons along with their journal this month.  Lachlan was quite fond of them. 

After spending some time coloring and enjoying the journals I asked them to make some observations.  I asked them to observe the dinosaurs and write down their observations.

Peter noticed that the Brontosaurus had a long neck and asked how to write it.  So I wrote it out on a paper for him to follow.

Lachlan made some observations about the Mussaurus.  He was drawing arrows up and down and seemed to be documenting their movement. 

On Day 1 we also got our Dino Nametags and MGT had a brilliant idea.  Instead of just writing their names write their dino names.  We added saurus to the end of their name to get their dino name.

 I wrote it in pencil and Peter started tracing over it with a marker. 

On Day 2 we got out our Nametags and worked on putting the letters from our name in order in the lesson called Letter Fossils.  First I made letter "rocks" out of brown paper with all the letters in Petersaurus' name on them.  Then I buried them face down in the sand we had out for the Excavation Dig lesson we had done earlier. (The Excavation Dig lesson had us dig out paper dino bones from the sand and put them together, you can see the remnants of it in the lower right hand corner of the picture.)

Peter used his brush to dig out the letters and then put them in order.  He felt quite accomplished.

Adam did some digging of his own when he discovered the towel drawer.  My towels will never be folded again.  To say he was proud of himself would be an understatement. 

 Day 3 we made Fossil Dough for the Fossil Press lesson.  This is such a cool recipe.  It is made with used coffee grounds and cold coffee!?!?  Of course salt and flour is also included to bind it all together.  Obviously with these ingredients the dough is going to have an aroma but it also has a cool texture.  It's pretty rough.  The color goes great with the fossil/dirt concept. 

 Peter used his small Triceratops to make foot prints in his dough. 

Peter played with this stuff forever.  He made a snake and an egg but he didn't want them to sit out to get hard.  He wanted to keep it soft so he could play with it more later.  I put his creations in a Tupperware container and they kept pretty well.  They got more moist and we had to add more flour.  Since we were adding flour I threw in a little cinnamon.  I wanted to see if it would improve the smell for Lachlan's sake, he didn't play with it long because of the smell. 

Lachlan made a quick "pointy egg" and called it good.  He wanted his baked to make it hard.

I have to say, it made me giggle every time I passed it.  I know he said it was an egg . . . but I don't know.  It certainly did come out of that end.  :)

On Day 4 we got out new book!  This month it is called Jurassic Jam by Maria West.  Just in case you don't recognize that name, she is the amazing dancer and choreographer behind Dance N Beats.  Now she can add author to her list of expertise. 

It's such a cute story, not your typical Dinosaur story.  It's about dancing dinos of course.  It has a fun rhythm that flows through the whole book. 

Just recently Mother Goose Time has began a relationship with Amazon and you can now buy their books.  In the past the only way to get it was through a MGT kit.  So this is exciting stuff!  Here is a link (affiliate link)

Treasure Island - Boat

Oh this day was so fun.  So far this topic has been a blast.  Somehow, on this day, we were able to start at Circle Time and work all the way through, ending with Closing Time.  Usually our day is much more broken up then that.

I also got some awesome pictures through out the whole thing.  So I will tell a bit of a picture story.  It might be long! Sorry in advance.

As I was gathering my supplies and looking over the activities for the day, I had the boys dance along to Dance n Beats, the new Treasure Island DVD.

A little warm up song.

First time crab walking.

 They keep getting better at following along and their attention span for it is improving as well.

I started the day by asking the Circle Time discussion question, what kinds of things can float on the water?  Boats, life jackets, surfboards, Peter adds swimming dinosaurs and lastly Lachlan says floaties.  Seems like a pretty complete list to me.

We sung the days of the week song and I instructed them to pretend to row a boat when I sang the day of the week. 

 The first lesson was called Row the Boat.  I first asked the discussion question for this lesson, which asks, how do you think a boat moves through the water?  Lachlan said "a propeler and paddles that row."

 Next we recited the rhyme from the Rhyme Time Poster, which was row, row, row your boat.  As we said the rhyme Mother Goose Time gave us this idea of having them put their feet together, grab each others hands and move their bodies back and forth like they were rowing a boat.  Now this lesson that is marked as being a Language and Literacy lesson, also turned into a gross motor activity.

Listed as a skill for this activity was Phonological Awareness 10.2, which is Identifies Rhyme and Alliteration.  Unfortunately, I would probably put Lachlan at Benchmark B here.  I guess I just don't reinforce this skill enough.  Benchmark B states that he repeats the last word in familiar rhymes when prompted.  If there is song or rhyme that Lachlan knows, if I leave out a word he can fill it in.  Benchmark C states that he would be able to suggest a rhyming word within a poem or song.  I really don't think he would be able to come up with his own word.  Benchmark D states that he can identify when two words rhyme or don't rhyme.  He may be able to do that, but it's not a strong skill.

I am so glad I am looking at some of these skills in more detail.  I would definitely put his rhyming skills on the list of things to work on.  There are tons of opportunity in the Mother Goose Time curriculum, I just need to make sure to emphasize it.  I know that these skills help when it comes to learning to read.

We moved onto the Art of the day, Boat Art.  What could you see in the water if you took a boat ride? fish says Lachlan, a swimming dinosaur, says Peter.  Lachlan also adds that in a submarine we could see lion fish.  One of his favorite shows lately has been Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin.  The episode we have been watching shows a submarine diving to great depths, 430 feet down, to find the invasive species, lion fish.  The lion fish is only supposed to be in the Pacific ocean but somehow made it to the Atlantic.  This fish is well armed and eats a lot.  They are afraid it is going to wipe out native fish species. 

 Then Adam woke up and joined us.  He is such an easy going little guy.  Just hung out on the floor on his blanket and did some Mother Goose Time with us.

I put together the boat shells while the boys cut out the sea animal pictures.  Pictures of other animals we might see from a boat.  Sadly, there was no lion fish picture.  But Lachlan was fine with that.

 Mother Goose Time gave us these plane white circle stickers to put on the hull of the boat as windows.  Then they got to draw people in their windows. 

 Here he is telling me all about the passengers on his boat.  Lachlan listed all of his as well.  Sadly, Peter was not allowed on Lachlan's boat.  I guess he was a bit upset at him.  But Aunt Angela, Colton and Riley were on board. 

 I skipped ahead to Island Exploring where we studied the Theme Poster.  They used the Look and Find Glasses to find the items on the poster.  First Lachlan had to find the surfboard.  The back of the Look and Find Glass asked Lachlan to surf to something in the room that was the same color as the surfboard.

 The surfboard was red. 

 Next was Peter's turn and he was asked to count the number of palm trees. 

 Then he had to search for and count the crabs.

 But he didn't want to count the crabs he wanted to surf to something red like his brother.  That's what I got this face for.

Love it!

Go ahead Peter, surf to something red!

 Lastly we sorted fish for the Boatful of Fish lesson.  I made this simple paper strip fish.  We made them many months ago for another Mother Goose Time lesson and I thought they would be easier then cutting out a bunch of little fish silhouettes.  

 I explained to the boys that we were going to sort the fish.  I asked them if they knew what sort meant.  No.  It means we are going to organize them by color or by size.  I then asked them which way they would like to sort them first.  They chose to sort by color.

How many green ones do you have Peter?  5

 Next we sorted by size.  The pink and the blue ones were the small ones, or "babies" according to my boys. 

 The orange and green ones were the large ones or "mommies" according to them. 

 We counted after each time we sorted them and kept a tally.  We were a bit off on some the first time we counted because a few were hidden under the couch. 

It was an awesome day, and it didn't even end there.  Lachlan still seemed willing to continue so I got out the More Math & More Reading and Writing books.  

 Afterwards they got some good old fashioned play time in with their new props.