Co-op: Pre-K Dinosaurs, Week 2

Topic: Triceratops

Since pretty much every kiddo already knows about Triceratops and its existence, I included some of the etymology of the name: how "tri" = three, and "cera" = horn, and "tops" = face or head.  Some of the older kiddos thought that was interesting, and I figure it's never too early to start our word roots!

The coloring activity was actually making these cute little movable Triceratops figures - I love 'em!  Here's Kiddo's:

It took more time than I anticipated, but it was sure good to have the scholars helping cut out and assemble the pieces for the kiddos!  The head pivots, and that makes the mouth open & close - it took me a while to get that part.  (Some kids did NOT like that the brad had to go through the dino's eye, since they had colored their eyes specially; I think we tried to put it *next to* the eye if we could.)

After that coloring activity, we went on a Triceratops food hunt.

I totally should've gotten a picture of the little "plant stands" I made for that, but essentially each one was made of a sheet of green construction paper, sliced most of the way through and rolled up to look like a clump of grass.  I taped that to a paper plate to make it stand up, and it actually worked pretty well.

The kids LOVED their food hunt!  It was great to get them out and moving, although it was also quite difficult to contain all of them... and then there was some skirmishing over who got the most "grass," and whose grass was whose, when it wasn't in their hot little hands...

We didn't have time to make our Triceratops hats, although those would've been kind of fun - three paper cones rolled up and taped onto paper plates, tied on for the kiddos with strings.  It seemed like a good idea, but they were pretty maxed out and ready for lunch by the end of class, anyway.

MY Goal for 2011

Ever since I was young, my handwriting has been, for lack of a better word, ugly.

Oh, it's legible enough, most of the time, but it's far from classy.

It's far from what I want it to be.

Putting it that way makes me realize that it's become what I wanted it to be a long time ago: as a teen, I thought that a highly-stylized, highly-casual handwriting would be a good marker of my independence and ... oh, I don't know. Something "fancy free," perhaps. Unique. Identifying.

And I bet it is identifying!  But especially as my use of computers has become more frequent, and my occasions for handwriting have become less so, it's become unpredictable, and sometimes it's downright difficult to read.  (The thought, "Good luck decoding my journal, future generations!" has occurred to me more than once...)

I want to fix that.

So that's my one very specific goal for this year: improving my handwriting.

Unfortunately, as I was all geared-up to show you how horrid my writing is, I've produced one of my more legible writing samples.  Go figure.  But it'll get better with practice!

And someday, once I'm re-accustomed to writing with more than my fingertips, I might even manage to get a hand-written thank-you note in the mail again. :)

Co-op: Pre-K Dinosaurs, Week 1

Introduced the topics of dinosaurs and fossils.

Enthusiasm for dinosaurs?  Definitely.

Ability to sit still?  Not so much.  (This is a huge age range, with major developmental differences, too - barely three, all the way to age five, and quite able to lecture me about their favorite dinosaur.)

We made our own handprint "fossils" in salt dough... perhaps not the best idea for "fossils," since most kids decided to continue playing with their dough and ended up with just a glop of it on their plate. ;)  At least they had fun!

Our "fossil rocks" for the dino dig

Something the kids really loved, that also turned out according to plan, was our "dino dig" - I used a "fossil" recipe with instructions from this site ** and made a batch of little "fossils" with miniature dinosaur toys inside.  A Scholar helper scattered them around the sand volleyball court outside, and the kids had a blast looking for them and then chipping the dino toys out!  They ALSO loved getting outside - it was tough to contain all of them and herd them back in.

Oh - on that note, there were five more children attending than were on the registered list.  I was prepared for twelve and thirteen (with nine registered), but not fourteen!  Fortunately, Kiddo was okay with not making a fossil.  He's not real big on getting his hands messy, anyway.  One of the boys missed the fossil part (I think he must have been late), so I made another little batch of dough that week and brought it in for him to make at home the next Friday.

**Note on the recipe: it calls for 1/2 c Plaster of Paris, but I'd increase the PoP slightly, since our "fossils" were still a little on the crumbly side.

Blog Purpose

I'm creating this blog to record our learning experiences at home and elsewhere.

I'm hoping to have a record of what we've studied, and how, as well as how it worked, so that we can not only have our own documentation, but also to share ideas with other families.