Dinosaur Week Recap

Well...so ends dinosaur week.  We had fun making different dinosaur crafts and going on our field trip to the natural history museum to see fossils and dino skeletons.

I can't say whether or not Big Boy was quite as interested in all of the different activities I had planned for this week of home learning as he was last week.  He was willing to do most things, but his attention span was a bit shorter.  On the other hand- he is now fully potty trained and was going pretty often! So maybe he was just distracted this week.

Here is what this week looked like:

Monday - The boys were introduced to their sensory bins.  Little Man has a hard time enjoying his time in the basement with us in the mornings; by the time we finish breakfast, get cleaned, up and get ourselves together to head down, he is ready for a nap.  So I don't know that he cares to much for these sensory bins.  He knows I am using them to keep him occupied and out of my arms.  Later in the week, though, he did spend some good time with during one of Big Boy's now rare afternoon naps. 

 Big Boy on the other hand, was rather fond of his bin.  On the first day with it he insisted I do the dinosaur excavating, so I did.  Modeling is very important.  Sometimes it's annoying because I don't put activities together for me to do, but I have to remind myself he is watching so he can do it later.  I let him watch dig videos on youtube for a while and he was actually pretty focused... not on the archeologists, but on the excavators used at the dig sites (the boy is in love with big trucks).

Big Boy made a dinosaur collage (once again courtesy of my Cricut).

We went to the library.  The boys had me going a little crazy.  We need to work on volume control in the library.  Scratch that.  In general.  I don't know how much more of the shrieking I can take!

The counting worksheet didn't go over well.  Big Boy hates to count.  I asked him to count with me and he hit me.  I took away some cars.  He got mad and wanted nothing to do with me.... until I sat down at the table with a dinosaur puzzle and sang "We are the dinosaurs marching, marching.  We are the dinosaurs, we make the Earth flat!" I marched the pieces around the table and into their correct spot.  Then he came running... and smiling.  And all was right with the world. 

Later that night the daddy got him to count a little bit, using food as a motivator, but hey...you do what works sometimes.  He also showed daddy how to use brushes to excavate dinosaur bones (remember the modeling....there ya go).

Tuesday - 

The very first thing we did was to check our baby dinosaur egg (Big Boy was so excited to find in the sensory bin the day before)!

The egg is cracked!  Very exciting stuff.

There were dinosaur bones that needed discovering... more sensory bin play!  This time the cutie pie was much more independent and used his brush to clean off the bones as he unearthed them.

We read How do Dinosaurs say Happy Birthday, by Jane Yolen, and made a paper birthday cake.  I swear he smiled the entire time!

We had our field trip.  Their was a lot of gasping and pointing.

Wednesday - 

We went to gymboree to start our day.

We game home to check on "Egg Baby" who was making his way out of his shell.  Of course a certain boy had to hatch as well.

Big Boy had no interest in reading with me.

He had very little interest in our big/small worksheet.  He did draw a circle when I asked him to circle a small dinosaur  (which I modeled for him and did some hand over hand circles first).  This was impressive since he usually only draws back and forth strokes.

He had just enough patience to do our "Dd" is for dinosaur craft.  Barely enough.  When he decided he was done he took off like a shot to his train table at the other side of the room.

While I did have his attention for this project, though, he did well repeating the "d" sound over and over.  So it was a good speech development activity to boot.  Also, the night before I had discovered a new way to get him to make different consonant sounds... our own twist on the telephone game.  I would make a sound ( "p, p, p" or "k, k, k") in his ear and tell him "Now go tell Daddy!" And he did.

Thursday - 

 Big Boy went to his School Skills class at Gymboree.  He impressed his teacher by working independently on his crafts (tissue paper art and a watercolor painting).

We read "How do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon"  and used a doctor kit to perform check ups on his sick dinosaur toys.

Big Boy painted with stencils, different style brushes... and eventually his fingers!

Friday - 

Big Boy has discovered dress up.  He used to hate it.  He wanted to like it, but he hated it.  Now he likes it.  Super cute.

We made dinosaur fossils.  So much fun!

Big Boy made canvas art.  I used my Cricut to cut a large dinosaur shape on card stock, taped it onto a canvas, let him have at it with paints, then removed the paper shape.  A reverse silhouette.  He thought that was hilarious.

We played a few rounds of Discovery Toy's "Roll and Play" game.  One of the action cards was to trace your hand.  He thought that was pretty great.

We did quite a bit, huh?  No wonder I am no where near prepared for our trip to the shore.  We leave tomorrow.... well, today... I'm up way too late.