Horn Homeschool: Weeks 12-13

Solomon is intrigued by Chloe's pretend T-rex tongue.

After our week 11 break, we took two weeks to study dinosaurs.

My strategy in tackling a dinosaur unit study was to spend a few days defining dinosaurs and review the creation week.  Then we took one individual dinosaur a day and studied it more indepth.  We read several non-fiction and/or picture books about each dinosaur and then we did a correlating craft.

 Lastly, Chloe and I created a dinosaur comparison chart in which we graphed the heights of several dinosaurs.  This was a FANTASTIC activity!  I found some excellent resources here which gave me all the tools we needed.  The website linked above had a complete table listing dinosaur heights, weights, and lengths.  Using these simple tables, Chloe and I recorded various stats on a handful of dinosaurs.  There was SO much math involved here I was one happy math nerdette!  It was especially satisfying to see that Chloe was enjoying the math and not even recognizing it as such.  Sneaking math into fun activities is way more fulfilling to me than putting covert veggies into foods ala the Jessica Seinfeld method.

I knew close to nothing about dinosaurs at the beginning of our unit study.  Thank the Lord for helpful resources!  One such treasure trove came from our local library.  Our library has recently created some brand spanking new discovery backpacks. You guessed it, we snagged a brand new dino discovery pack!  It was incredible!  I won't even begin to tell you all the fun educational dino-themed gems included.  

Of course there are endless activities you can do when studying dinosaurs.  We did role-playing to cement the various behaviors of dinos, categorized dinos based on eating habits (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore),  did dino-computer games on the dinosaur train website, dug in the sand for dinosaur toys, and learned about fossil hunters/scientists. We should have visited the natural history museum to look at real dino bones but I was too tired to plan such a big field trip.

I learned a LOT about dinosaurs.  I hope the kids learned a few things too.

Clive REALLY loved playing and learning about T.Rex in particular.  Chloe enjoyed the study too but not nearly as much as her rough-and-tumble brother.  Near the end of our second dino-learning week Chloe sighed and asked, "Mommy, can we study something more nice next week like . . . princesses?"   

Chloe (in very tight pants) modeling her homemade Stegosaurus blades and T-rex mouth.

Putting the hard-boiled cracked eggs in to soak up some dye.  In a few days these babies become neat-looking dino eggs!

Clive creating a dino-stamping masterpiece.

Chloe stamps a dinosaur scene.

Cracking the hard-boiled eggs before soaking them in colored water.

A dinosaur egg!

Pretty realistic looking, don't you think?

Our dinosaur height chart.  Brontosaurus was the tallest by far!