D is for Dinosaur!



Clip Art by BioArt
 
 

We just wrapped up a week of bones not too long ago in which we touched on the topic of dinosaurs.  My kiddos liked it so much that I thought it was worth revisiting and creating an entire dinosaur week!

 

 

 

 

Here is a quick wrap up of some activities we did for "D is for Dinosaur" week:

 

- Dinosaur Sensory Bin                            - Dinosaur Mystery Painting

- Dinosaur Egg Hunt (spelling)                 - Dinosaur Double Trouble Game

- "d is for dinosaur" alphabet craft            - Dinosaur Classification

- Carnivore, Omnivore, Herbivore Venn Diagram

 

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Dinosaur Sensory Bin

 

I like to introduce every new week with:

 

1)  review of what we did last week,

2) an exploration of things that begin with the letter of the  week in our dictionary...we love  My first Dictionary by DK Publishing.  There are bright  pictures with simple yet accurate definitions.

3) a sensory bin!!

 

 

 

I try to create little "mini worlds" with my sensory bins to the best of my ability.  I always try to include things we already have lying around the house, a new object or two, and some manipulatives that we will be using throughout the week to serve as a "symbol" for the work (play) done in the unit.

 

For this weeks sensory bin, I used:

 

  - A rectangle aluminum casserole dish 

  - Plastic dinosaurs and trees we had lying around the house

  - A new pack of dinosaurs  {the manupilative/symbol of the week}

  - Blue glass beads for "water"

  - Rocks! 

  - Black beans and split peas (you could also add sand/dirt/coffee grounds)

 

 

 

 

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Spelling--Dinosaur Egg Hunt! 

 

Looking for another use of those Easter eggs hanging out in your kid's closets? :) 

I know I was.

 Objectives:  Reinforcing the fact that dinosaurs hatch from eggs (unlike mammals).  Recognizing the word "dinosaur"

 

 

This was a fun activity!  First I traced the word "dinosaur" on a piece of paper using the letters that were going to be hidden away in dinosaur eggs.  I got them from the dollar store quite some time ago, and they are still going strong!  Then I hid one letter in each egg (along with some dinosaurs and candy).  Armed with baskets and a sunny attitude, they ventured around until all the eggs were found!

 

We even did the activity again with lowercase letters later that week.

 

 

 

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Science--Dinosaur Classifications

Objectives:  Classify dinosaurs by diet and physical characteristics. First we read "My First Dinosaur-touch and feel" by DK publishers.  We really like DK books!  This book provides several touchy-feely pictures of dinosaurs and grouped them into groups (dinosaurs with spikes and frills, dinosaurs that are "meat munchers", etc).                                                                                     

 

We first looked at the physical characteristics of the dinosaurs.  We had some pretty realistic dinosaur stickers from Melissa and Doug.  I cut them out, and we first sorted them in pairs (my 2.5 yo helped with this).  Then I folded a paper in half and wrote one characteristic on each side of the paper.  For example, one side of the paper was for dinosaurs that walked on two feet, and the other were for dinosaurs that walked on four feet.  I provided a few examples and then let my 5yo think of other ways that the dinosaurs could be grouped.

 

We also sorted dinosaurs by what they ate.  This was also an opportunity to introduce venn diagrams.  On three cards I wrote "carnivore", "herbivore", and "omnivore".  Then I got out a few large pieces of string.  I made two overlapping circles with the string and labeled each category appropriately (the "omnivore" category was the overlapping area in the middle). Then, we got out all of our play food and groceries and sorted them into the kinds of things carnivorous, herbivorous, and omnivorous dinosaurs would eat--with a little creative latitude of course!  This was a fun one.

 

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Dinosaur Arts & Crafts

 

We did the "d is for dinosaur" alphabet craft.  The template can be found at Teacher Template:

 

We also did a dinosaur mystery painting.  I got the idea from The Do It Yourself Mom.  Please excuse my dinosaur drawing skills :)  But I thought my 5yo use of colors was very pleasing to the eye!

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed the weekly round up!! 

 

 

~Dee J.

 

 

C is for Caring

It's almost Valentine's Day again, and now is a perfect time to have a conversation with your children or students about caring.  For me, caring is about giving and receiving love from people, places and thing/objects.  So when we throw around the phrase "I don't care" we are affirming that we do not want to give or receive love.  Which is...well...a place where many of us don't want to be.

For this post, I have included:

(1) a sample conversation you can have with your little significant others about caring (2) activities designed to help children artistically express how they give and receive care in their lives (3) a link to a *FREE* emergent reader that your little ones can illustrate  (4) a song and (5) a few good reads on "caring".

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Talking to the "littles" about caring

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Caring is giving your love to another person, place or thing/object.  We can give our love to family members and friends, pets, our homes and even our toys.  We can show our family, friends and pets love by telling them we love them each day and by doing things together.  We can show our love for our home by helping to keep it clean and fixing anything that is broken.  We can also show our love for our toys by picking them up and placing them back in their places when we are done playing with them and playing with them carefully so they don’t break.

Who do you give your love to?  How do you show them love?

"I Care" by Angela Leeper

What things do you give your love to? How do you show them love?

What places do you give your love to? How do you show them love?



"The Peace Book" by Todd Parr

When we take care of people, places and things—or show love to them—often times they will show love to us.  So we get back the love we give.  If you show your brother love by giving him a hug, sometimes you might get a hug back.  If you help pick up your toys and play with them carefully, your toys will be easy to find the next time you want to play with them and they will not be broken!  If you fix things around the house when they start to break, your house will look good and keep you safe.

 

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Artistics Expressions of Care

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1)    “I care” collage—Write or type the words “I care” in the center of a page or poster board.  Have several magazines available.  Invite your students to cut and paste pictures of the things they care about on their poster board.  Afterwards, you can have a “show and tell”.  Are there things that are similar across collages?  What are some differences?

2)    “I care” reader—I have put together a free printer-ink and artistic child friendly reader.  {Get it from my TPT store here} Each page in the reader includes one to two sentences expressing what we give care to and who gives care to us.  All pages are blank so that independent illustrations can be added.  If you have students/children who are not particularly keen on drawing, you can provide pictures of families, pets, toys, and other things that children care for.

3)    Make your own Belly Badge—If you have little ones who are in to the Care Bears, this is a great idea!  First review some of the belly badges the Care Bears have.  The badges are symbols for how the bears show that they care!  After your review, invite your child/students to draw a symbol of how they care on the back of a paper plate.  (This is also a good time to explore what a “symbol” is too).  Then punch holes in the sides of the plate and tie it around their waste with some string. Now they have their own belly badge!

Yes I Care! Song

 

{To the tune of London Bridges Falling Down}

I give my love because I care (hands and arms out)

Yes I care (whisper), Yes I care! (shout)

We give our love because we care (hands and arms out)

For each other (arms make a big circle over the head and to the ground)

 

 

I feel love because you care (hands on the heart)

Yes you care (whisper), Yes you care (shout)

We feel love because we care (hands on the heart)

For each other (arms make a big circle over the head and to the ground)

 

Always give and accept love with grace :)

~Dee J.

B is for Bones

         For some reason I have been avoiding the whole alphabet-themed lesson planning like the plague. But...my son has taken an interest in learning time, and we needed to find more activities that he could participate in.  Oh, and my daughter absolutely loves alphabet crafts.  So I (at  first) reluctantly accepted their desires to start focusing on one letter a week.

To my surprise, alphabet-themed weeks are in no way limiting!  Instead it helps focus my mildly scattered mind on a few topics.  Focusing on one letter at a time is helping my daughter to get a better grasp on listening for initial sounds. 

For "B" week we focused on "bones" and "bears".  I admit, we had waaay too much fun with bones that we hardly got around to bears, but we did do a few activities.  

Here is what we did this week!

Skeleton Nomenclature                         Where are the Bears? Geography Activity

Make a Model Spine                               Paper Plate Bear Art

Make a Model Rib Cage                         Make Clay Bones

Bone Readers & Games                         Bone Number Bond Activity

**ABCs of Life Focus:  What does it mean "to be"?**

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Science:  Anatomy

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Obviously, focusing on "bones" lends itself well to the study of biology.  We also talked about dinosaur bones. We used the following books (which many were, conveniently, written by authors with names that also start with "b"):

> "Bones" by Stephen Krensky:  a well-written non-fiction book with interesting bone facts

> "Dem Bones" by Bob Barner:  goes along with the song "Dem Bones".  Cute illustrations, but the kids were a little confused about the "dry bones" part :)  And a lot of bones are omitted.

> "Dinosaur Bones" by Bob Barner: a lot of facts about dinosaur bones--perhaps too many for little learners, but the book is written so that they are 

optional.

> "Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones" by Byron Barton: tells a sequential story of how paleontologists find bones and put them together in a museum.

Nomenclature

We practices the scientific names of some major bones with these {FREE} skeleton nomenclature cards:

 There are 13 cards (both blank and colored) for the (1) skeleton, (2) skull, (3) pelvis, (4) spine, (5) rib cage, (6) hand bones, (7) foot bones, (8) humerus, (9) radius, (10)  ulna, (11)  femur, (12)  tibia, (13)  fibula.  You can get these free nomenclature cards at my TPT store.

Model-Building

We built a model of the spine for our vertebrate/invertebrate unit, but it would also be useful to include here!  We definitely referenced our model during bone week.  

You will need: 

-a pipe cleaner

-wagon wheel noodles

-soft foam beads

Assembly:  string noodles and soft foam beads on a pipe cleaner alternating one by one.  The wagon wheel represent the vertebrates in the spine, and the soft foam beans represent the discs that keep our vertebrates from rubbing each other, and ultimately causing damage. Now use the model to demonstrate how your spine can bend!

You can also make a model of a rib cage!  To facilitate the understanding of the function of the rib cage, get a wire whisk and pieces of clay or play-dough.  The whisk represents the rib cage, and the clay/play dough represents our "squishy organs" such as the heart and lungs that the rib cage protects.  Demonstrate how easy it would be to damage a lung or heart if it wasn't in a cage by playing with some play dough (you can even attempt to shape it into a heart/lungs).  Then place your play-dough organs in the wire whisk.  Now try to damage the organs. Have a discussion about how our bones protect other important parts (like the brain).

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Science:  Geography

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Where are the bears? We also did an activity to locate the regions in which many bears live.  We read Bears, Bears Everywhere by Bob Barner.

This book provides some information on how bear species differ by diet, cub rearing, and location. We talked through the map in the back of the book to understand the dispersal of bears around the world.  Then we got out our own large felt continents.  I found and printed pictures of bears that were in the book .  Then we matched the bears with the continent that they live in.  

We also read Brown Bear, Brown Bear (again, we did a Brown Bear unit not too long ago) but this time we encouraged our oldest to read it on her own!

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Math--Number Bonds & Counting

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Bone Bonds!

I am working on two fronts with my children.  My youngest is just starting to associate the written number and the word.  My oldest is learning to break numbers into smaller numbers via number bonds.  Number bonds are a new(er) addition to the Core Curriculum that I was previously unfamiliar with, but the skill makes sense to me!

I created the "Bone Bonds" puzzle for children who are just beginning to explore number bonds.  Of course, you can get it free through my TPT store.  This activity is a series of 13 puzzles that include all number bonds from 1 to 5 and one worksheet.  Cut the bones apart on the dotted lines, and then work with your child to put them back together.  Draw notice to how many different ways you can get to the number five!  (i.e. 1 and 4, 2 and 3, 3 and 2, etc..)

Krista Mahan Teaching Momster also has very cool skeleton-themed number puzzles that we used that is FREE at the TPT store.  They can be adapted for younger and older students.

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Literacy--Bones and "to be"

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We found a beneficial reading activity (for free) from Sally Landers called "Cuttin' It Close--Skeleton Close Read".  This is activity helps with reinforcing some of the scientific bone names.  

Finally, we are doing a series called "ABCs for Life" to supplement our science and literacy-centered fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants curriculum.  For the letter "b" we discussed what it meant to "be".

We defined "to be" as how we behave or act.  The main point for us was to understand that there are several ways "to be" and that it changes all the time throughout the day.  I wrote "be" on one note card and a series of ways to be on other note cards.  For example, "silly","quiet", "loud", "calm". We then talked about how, even though we change our way of "being" all the time, there is a piece of us--that is connected to God and each other--that always remains loving.  We must remember to find our way back to this way of being in all we do.  Allow your child some creative space to draw a map to guide him/her back to "being love".

Thanks for reading, and have a wonderful day

*~Be Love~*

-Dee J.