This week, we were working on “Dd”. We focused mainly on dinosaurs. Here was this week’s dinosaur themed muffin tin lunch:
-fries
-dino shaped chicken nuggets
-yogourt with dinosaur sprinkles
-dinosaur fruit snacks
-pepperoni sticks (logs)
-broccoli (trees)
-plastic dinosaurs as “garnish”
Excavating dinosaurs from ice. I got this great idea from I Can Teach My Child. To make these, I put a bit of water in disposable cups and froze them, then added a plastic dinosaur to each one and covered with water and continued freezing. I then took them out of the cups and kept them in a bag in the freezer until we were ready to use them. The kids used water in dinosaur shaped water guns and eye droppers and plastic knives to dig out the dinosaurs. They loved this activity!
Dino Dig – I gave the kids a kit where they dug out a glow in the dark dinosaur out of a dinosaur “egg”. This activity didn’t go as well because the kids didn’t like taking turns and because it created quite a bit of a fine dust which bothered Miss Optimism’s lungs. I wouldn’t recommend this activity as the ice one made less mess, was less expensive to make, and the kids enjoyed it more.
You can check out our dinosaur sensory bin here.
Here are some of the activities that I put in the kids’ workboxes this week:
-dinosaur measuring activity (idea from Counting Coconuts)
-dinosaur matching activity…I printed off cards on various sites for the kids to match up with the dinos in the bowl
-dinosaur graphing (from Confessions of a Homeschooler)
-I set up a pile of books about dinosaurs next to the reading corner so that the person who got this card in their bin could sit and read the ones that interested them
-Dinosaur Card Game
One of my favourite moments this week was when we decided to do our schoolwork in the kitchen so that I could get some pumpkin cookies made. The mood was light, the kids were helping with the cookies periodically, and after I had read from the Science textbook and Story of the World, we turned some music on and danced around before they started working on some of their worksheets!
Every day, we focused on a different dinosaur with activity sheets, colouring sheets, dot-to-dots, and information sheets. I got most of these from All Kids Network and Kidsparkz.
I used a few different tools to help the kids remember which direction the “d” and “b” face, including this cute “dog” and “bee” printable from Five Js.
In our Apologia Science, we started learning about the skeletal system and the kids are picking it up really well. Math U See continues to be going well. In Story of the World, we finished learning about Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar. The kids are still loving their gymnastics classes.
What a great study–it looks like so much fun! I’m going to have to pop back over here for inspiration as we’ll be learning about dinosaurs in a few weeks. And I love the spontaneous moments of fun, dance, and laughter the best too!!! “Relationships are what homeschooling is all about.” 🙂
Fun! We love Dinosaurs 🙂 Stopping by from WUHS.
All things dinosaurs~ Oh my! You’re so much more dedicated than I. Your kids are very lucky. The dinosaur graphing and matching activities are very cool. Lovely pictures of the kids having fun at school.
What a fun week it must of being for kids. All things dinosaurs? We did one of those a couple of years ago (including the digging for dinos) and kids are still asking for more!
Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks for linking up! I love all your ideas…especially the dinosaurs in ice!
What a good idea with the ice. Mine would love doing that. thanks for sharing onthe NOBH
I love the idea of freezing the dinosaur figures to dig out. That would work for so many different things! Looks like a great week.
What FUN activities you came up with for studying dinosaurs! Love it!
Wow, what a fun week! I LOVE your creativity. The muffin tin lunch idea is so cute 🙂
We love doing school in the kitchen. We moved from our downstairs schoolroom last March to the kitchen and it was a great move for us. I love being able to cook things in between helping with table work. We usually have music on while we work too!
I dino dig and wonderful meal! What a dino-mite way to spend an afternoon!
Fun tin! My son would love it! He loves dinos!
I love all your dinosaur activities. The frozen water activity is great. And your muffin tin is so cute. Love the addition of dinos as “garnish.” We also have dino shaped chicken nuggets at our store. The girls love them. I have never seen dino sprinkles though. How cute.
What a GREAT idea! Love your lunch and the dinosaur dig is a GREAT idea!!!
What a fun week! It’s great having children of varying ages, and you seem to be able to meet each ones needs. My son is getting to “old” to do some of these fun activities. He just wants to get school done and move on most of the time. I’m always trying to bring more fun to the day. Guess I’m just a kid at heart. Thank you so much for sharing what you are doing. It’s very inspiring.
Oh my god I love this idea! I’m doing letters with my daughter too, and I love the idea of incorporating the letter in the muffin tin! I am definitely going to do it going forward.
I wanted to stop by and let you know that I’m running a Muffin Tin Challenge on my Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Emmas-Lunch/129254923796105. All you need to do is take a picture of your muffin tin and post it to the Emma’s Lunch page by Monday October 17th. You will automatically enter into a draw to win a lunch box for your child!
I hope you’ll join in!