Dino Hunt

First thing this morning we had a dinosaur hunt and then L and I did a dinosaur quizz together, more about that later. We then all emptied most of the sand out of our sand pit onto our tuff tray and created this dinosaur world.

I used a twinkl resource for our dinosaur quizz, L really loves this sort of which one or who am I puzzles, we have a logic puzzle book and these are most definitely her favourite type of quizz at the moment.

We then, as requested by the children the other evening had our dinosaur hunt, they wanted it to be the same as the one I did for l's birthday so they wanted some cards to find as well, that they could match up the toy dinosaurs too. I found the pictures here  on the Every Star is Different blog, there are lots of dinosaur ideas an more printables, especially for the older child.

I pegged the cards in various locations around the garden and then set about hiding the toy dinosaurs.

Hidden in various bushes,

eating my plants,

climbing trees,

thinking about sliding down slides,

bouncing on the trampoline,

Or at least that was were they were the first time, as per normal this sort of hide and seek game goes down well and it is usually repeated more than once, then L decided to hide them for me to try and find.

We spent this afternoon reading lots of stories as well as playing with the dinosaurs.

Dinosaur Swamp

On Sunday night I set up tray ready for Monday morning, the children were really excited on Friday about the idea of a dinosaur swamp, they have enjoyed reading Romp in the Swamp. Well it wasn't long before my husband and M were playing with it, which was rather funny, they did set it up again ready for the minded children and L to play with it. Monday morning you would of found all the children round the traying playing, they spent over an hour with lots of pretend play going on, grouping the dinosuars into families, adding more water and geli baff when needed, or should I say when the children decided they wanted more added. It has been played with on and of for the last couple of days and I can see it being left set up all week as they keep going back to it, rearranging and adding bits etc.

One child collected some of the small dinosaurs up and hid them in the cave, covered them with pebbles and geli baff, so they were safe from the big dinosaurs.

Another collected up lots of geli baff and then added more water and spent time mixing it and exploring the texture, noticing the changes it went through as the water was added.

Tonight I have spotted one dinosaur with a new hair do or is it a hat?

As well as playing with the dinosaurs and learning their different names, they have been interested in their different diets, plant eaters and meat eaters and I have explained what herbivore and carnivore means but they seem to prefer the term plant or meat eater. They have also spent time observing how the geli baff and water react together and how quickly the geli forms compared to how long the water beads take to swell up. The different textures of the geli baff, glass pebbles and dinosaurs, the temperature of the pebbles etc. whether they feel cold, warm etc, so some good science exploration coming in, as well as creative play, learning new words.

Dinosaur Fossils

W have enjoyed making some dinosaur fossils using salt dough and some of our small toy dinosaurs. It's one way to explain how some fossils are formed, might make some casts with them later on, will see what they want to do.

Salt Dough Recipe

1 cup of salt

2 cups of plain flour

3/4 cup of water

Mix all the ingredients together and kneed well, you can add some food colouring at the same time as the water if you want some coloured dough. I added some chestnut brown to ours, not much but just enough to give a bit of colour. 

They each took a small ball of dough on squashed it down a bit.

Then they pressed their dinosaur into the dough

and then carefully removed it

to leave behind it's imprint.

We baked our dough in the oven at gas mark 2 for a few hours until it was dry.

They decided to paint them and chose lots of bright colours. They have asked if we could do it again but next time do it with biscuits so they could eat them.

Harry and the Dinosaurs

Catching up on some of what we have done over the last few weeks, we went away for holiday, had a lovely time and came back turned the computer on to load up all our photos and it dies! So we have had no computer for a couple of weeks and I prefer to use a keyboard to type on rather than a touch screen, so have been waiting for it to be repaired, so I can get on with my work as well as update my blog.

The children have been really interested in dinosaurs and they love the Harry stories, I am using Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs and Romp in the Swamp for inspiration. So here is my planning.

I froze some small dinosaurs in some water, some with added food colouring, some with not, then popped them out onto our tray and let them try and excavate them, using a pipette and warm water. Lots of talk about why water freezes and why ice melts, the difference in temperature, how their hands felt after they had handled the ice. They asked if I could freeze more dinosaurs so they could do it again tomorrow, think that means they really enjoyed the activity. I did as they asked and they enjoyed another morning of melting.

They love a game of hopscotch, especially as the older ones are beginning to recognise and try and write some of the numbers, which they love to write, see if you can spot their attempts. Love how pleased they are now they can write them without any help. They haven't got the idea yet of hopping on one square and then jumping with two feet one in each box yet but lot's of giggles as they try.

Holiday

We managed to have our first holiday in a few years, celebrating 20 years of marriage, had a lovely week, even if the first few days were rather chilly. Our cabin was surrounded by honeysuckle it smelt divine in the early evening.

We had a lovely walk along the beach on our wedding anniversary and stopped at a small cafe for some chips.

We sat on the beach and L and I built towers,

L found this stone and decided it looked like a person.

A trip to Bournemouth Oceanarium

Otters relaxing in the sun.

Sandcastles and sand sculptures on a lovely sandy beach.