Dino Week, Part II

A couple weeks ago, Ben and I took a tour through all things dinosaurs (catch Dino Week, Part I here) for some science learning.  We've done a few more activities since then, and also had a fun dinosaur party with some friends on Friday!

Also from the Homeschool Share lesson plans I printed off came this report activity.  I printed off one of the downloadables:  in this case, a packet of different dinosaurs.  We did "research" in a library book to find out more information about each dino.  He and I split the writing duties, and I was really surprised at how much Ben liked finding the facts in the book.  

We also did this graph (again, one of the downloads from Homeschool Share).  I had a list of the various lengths of different dinosaurs, and Ben had to color that in.  He really does not enjoy coloring, so this was a stretch for him!  But he was proud of the result.

Finally, we got together with friends for a dino-themed structured playdate with my friends Katie (she will start homeschooling next year) and Sarah (she has a first grade homeschooler), and our combined 8 children.  Thankfully Sarah's mom joined us because we sure needed the extra set of hands!  Here, the kids (minus the two 1 year olds) are coloring dinosaur pictures.

 Then, Katie had the kids paint dino feet and make tracks!

Sarah brought thes dinosaur shaped peanut butter sandwiches for a snack (and some dino fruit snacks!).

 Lastly, I brought Ben's dinosaur shrinky-dinks that he got for Christmas.  I did lots of shrinky-dinks when I was a kid, but both Katie and Sarah never heard of them before and I know others who never did them.  Basically, it's a thin sheet of plastic (much like an overhead transparency) that you color with colored pencils, then bake for a few minutes in the oven.  These started out on a cookie sheet and filled up the whole thing, and here are the final products, not even taking up all the space on half piece of paper.  Get them for your kiddos... they are very very fun!! 

And now I think we're done with dinosaurs.  Ben seems to have burned out, and Momma is now 34 weeks along and really slowed down.  We didn't accomplish all of our core tasks last week, which is totally fine because we have that flexibility with homeschooling.  But, it's a good remind that we should just concentrate on those until after baby sister arrives!  Ben still has a volcano kit that he got for his birthday from his aunt and uncle and cousins, so I think a little geology might be next on the science agenda!