Prehistoric Postcard

Any morning we can paint is a good morning. Mother Goose Time provided this Prehistoric postcard with the suggestion for each child to make a handprint dinosaur they could decorate. What a great idea! 

My granddaughter thought it would be fun to add little dinosaur footprints all over her dino print, front and back. 

 We talked about how some of the dinosaurs had eyes on the sides of their heads so maybe they could see things behind them. At the suggestion of MGT she used the magnifying glasses to check out her work and other things around the room. She doesn't know this yet but I put the postcard in the mail addressed to her. 

After that she mixed colors and painted playdough mats. It was a messy, fun way to start the morning. 

 Then it was bathtime for the dinosaurs. That might be even more fun than painting but it was equally messy. The fun lasted until baby sister needed a diaper change, Grandma left room to attend to her, and 5 wondered what would happen if she pulled up that round thing in the bottom of the sink. Dinosaur down! Dinosaur down! 

Thankfully Papa has long needle nosed pliers and patience. 

No dinosaurs were injured in the making of this blog.

Pink Tutu Monday

We have gotten out of the habit of having calendar time every morning but now that 7 is able to sit up and play she can join us. Yesterday morning I put her in the sit and stand and we sang all of our songs, counted how many days we've had so far in the month of January, read the color pattern, guessed what color we would use tomorrow and examined the weather. 

5 was having a tough morning and I've learned that is often a signal that her sensory needs are not being met. She likes squeezy, squishy things. I think I've mentioned the unblown (is that a word?) balloons I have that are filled with rice, or playdough, or coffee beans, or flour. This little darling often carries one around and plays with it when she needs to. Over the holidays my daughter in law brought these wonderful water beads to my house and left some with us. I used them in the classroom but had not thought to have them here. I bought the ones for school on Amazon. They are often used in floral arrangements. One of the coolest things about them is that they go from hard beads the size of cupcake sprinkles to these soft, gooey, squishy beads by just adding warm water and letting them sit. If you let them dry out, in a couple of days they will shrink back to their original size. 5 loves them and playing with them for a while soothed her little soul. 

Did I mention that it was Pink Tutu Monday? The girls both have them (in all honesty, all four of my granddaughters have them, in many colors) so why not? This dollhouse has been played with every day since my husband built it from scraps of wood he had in the basement. I have furnished it with small boxes and box lids for beds, a rectangular box for a bath tub and plastic furniture I've found at second hand stores and eBay. I found people those same places. I think some of the dollhouse people were put into time out yesterday so the water beads were not a perfect cure. You have to love 5's outfit...diaper, tutu, T-Rex headband. She knows it is suppose to be teeth down but would rather turn it upside down and have it be a crown with eyes. 

Our dinosaur fun not only included the headband, but also color sorting the Mother Goose Time counting manipulatives from day 3, hatching the eggs, and sorting the babies. Day 11 activities had directions for making dissolvable dinosaur eggs around the babies but 5 does that several mornings a week in her dinosaur oatmeal so we made up our own game.  

Types of Dinosaurs

Last week was so exciting I forgot to post about our fun days. Our granddaughter's favorite friend spent a couple of days with us because her parents were at the hospital for the birth of her beautiful and sweet brand new baby brother. Yea!
We introduced our friend to the breakfast of budding paleontologists, Dinosaur oatmeal. She was amazed with the melting eggs, the tiny dinosaurs she got to eat and of course the snowflake sprinkles I usually add just for fun.

After breakfast we got out our supplies from Mother Goose Time. We looked at the picture of the Brontosaurus and then got out the shape design mats and shape manipulatives from day 4. The girls enjoyed matching the designs and then trading the mats. 

 

Next we broke out the supplies MGT provided for day 9. I know we were suppose to use this to learn about the Massaurus but our friend was about to become a big sister and we needed to celebrate! 

The plates were nice and sturdy so the girls were able to color them with markers inside and out. I divided the beans between the two tambourines, sealed them together with hot glue, turned on some loud music and a dance party celebration broke out.

Yes, my granddaughter took her pajamas off. She got too warm with her celebration dance. And our friend needed a thumb/blanket break, but it was a really fun morning. 

Dinosaur Dig

Has it been crazy cold where you live? It has been in NE Illinois. The girls only came to our house a couple of days this week because their teacher mommy's school was closed for three days because it was too cold to have kids standing at a bus stop. 

The days they were here were full of dinosaur fun, starting with Dinosaur Eggs oatmeal of course. After all, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And why not watch eggs melt away to reveal tiny dinosaurs.

Last weekend I cooked a whole chicken in the crock pot and then dried the bones. I don't know if 5 has ever held a bone of any kind plus she's 2 so I knew she would believe these are dinosaur bones. Not to mention I've convinced all 7 of our grandchildren that I'm completely believable. 

Fortunately I was able to get some sand out of the sandbox on the deck before everything outside was frozen solid. I buried the chicken bones in the sand and waited for the girls to arrive. 

 After calendar time I reminded 5 that we don't pour sand on the floor inside the house, and gave her the paint brushes provided by Mother Goose Time plus a couple of bigger brushes. She brushed and brushed and when she found a bone she was amazed. 

Then she laid each bone on her mat, used the MGT brush for fine brushing and then as always, used her handy dandy magnifying glass. Each bone passed her rigorous and very scientific inspection. While she dug and inspected I told her about Paleontologists and excavation sites.

Later that morning we looked at the Mother Goose Time theme poster and matched the dinosaur picture cards, reading the descriptions and facts on the back of each card. It may take her the entire month of January to be able to identify each dinosaur with their correct name. Who am I kidding? She will probably have it by next week and at the end of the month I'll still be calling them by their Land Before Time names. 

 We found the matching mini dinosaurs for all of them except for the Stegosaurus. We had to us 7's musical dinosaur for that one. 

Hopefully things will warm up around here and we can learn a lot more next week.

Happy New Year!

We started this month celebrating the new year with the bonus material from Mother Goose Time. First we counted how many days we had in December and then talked about the difference between 2014 and 2015. Yeah, that didn't go over very well. She had no idea what I was talking about.

But she loved the game of jumping from 2014 into 2015. After we took turns jumping she decided to jump from 2014 and land on her bottom on 2015 and as much as she begged, I did not participate in this new version of the game. 

When Baby 7 woke up from her morning nap we used the Visual Arts materials from MGT to make footprints for the beginning of this year. It should be fun to compare them a year from now. We decided to outline their footprints with glitter glue because...well, why wouldn't we?

In the month of January our Mother Goose Time lessons and activities are all about dinosaurs. Our grandparenting adventure began with three grandsons so we already have some here and we learned that all the grandkids, the boys and girls like to play with them. Our daughter in law (#9 in the top of the blog picture) brought wonderful water beads to Family Christmas 2014. And she left some here! You can find them at several stores or online. They are a great thing to have around for sensory play. 5 just knew the baby dinosaurs would love playing in the squishiness of them. 

Then the big dinosaurs took turns giving the babies a ride.

We spent the rest of the morning playing with dinosaurs and trucks and tutus.