Dinosaur alphabet

I love reading 1+1+1=1. Carisa always has such fun ideas and has done so much work making Tot Packs and Tot Books for her son. I have made the Very Hungry Caterpillar one and the Brown Bear one and my kids love them. She has also made one for Dinosaur Train, as her children love the show just as much as mine do. Aidan is beyond some of the stuff in the tot pack, but he is loving the dinosaur ABC's. She was so clever and made the whole uppercase and lowercase alphabet AND the matching dinosaur with its name card. And behind the letters is the dinosaur picture as well, so the kids can get a little help matching by looking at the dinosaur. Aidan loves it!

Did you know you can also play the Dinosaur Train: Dinosaurs A-Z song at PBS Kids? Just go to the video section of the website and click on Dinosaurs A-Z clip. I wish I could find it just as an audio clip we could download. Aidan is absorbing all the songs he is hearing on the radio, wouldn't it be cool if he listened to this song and memorized all those dinosaurs.

Read more...

52 Week Challenge

Week 7 of 52

Friday is my little girl's second birthday. We celebrated with our families last weekend at my parent's house. Can't believe my little girl is already 2!

Meeting her new baby doll, one of the Bitty Baby twins. This is her first baby doll whose eyes close when you lay her down. She had a fun time trying to figure out how that worked!

She wasn't a huge fan of everyone singing "Happy Birthday" to her. Shortly after this photo she jumped up into my arms until the song was over and it was time to blow out the candles.

Check out the pretty cake my sister-in-law made. She is so talented I always have her make the kid's cakes. I feel like I am slacking in my motherly duties, but wouldn't you if you had such a talented artist in your family?

Read more...

Sue the T-Rex flip book

As this dinosaur obsession has really taken hold in our house, we have been talking about taking a family vacation to Chicago to see Sue. Sue is the T-Rex on exhibit at The Field Museum. While I was browsing their website I found a bunch of fun activities you can print off. My favorite is the T-Rex or the Triceratops flip books you can print out. There are also a few crossword and word search puzzles if you have older children.

You can also send a Sue e-card. Or just check out the image gallery and see how Sue came to be at the museum and what she looks like. Or check out her vital stats

So many fun things to discover on the Field Museum's website. We will definitely have to go check it out in person sometime soon.

Read more...

Thanksgving Countdown

I know I said this week would would be about our Dinosaur Train activities, but I forgot to share our Thanksgiving countdown turkey. I printed out a turkey pattern, I believe from Preschool Express. My little man colored it and picked out the biggest googly eye he could find. I cut and numbered all the feathers and we worked together gluing it all together on a 12x12 piece of scrapbook paper. Each day we look at the turkey to see how many days until Thanksgiving and write something we are thankful for on that day's feather.

It has been so fun seeing what my four year old is thankful for. I love today's contribution "for Ella pooping in the toilet" as his little sister has just started potty training. Ah, out of the mouths of babes.

Read more...

Dinosaur Train

My son is obsessed with dinosaurs. He has always liked dinosaurs, but ever since Dinosaur Train aired on PBS it has become an obsession. So this week I think I will share a few of the fun things we have been doing to really embrace this dinosaur mania and learn some fun facts along the way.

One thing I have done for him is print out the dinosaur cards and laminate them from the Dinosaur Train website. He had been having fun playing around on the website and going through the Field Guide himself, but I wanted him to be able to have something he could look at away from the computer. It was so thoughtful of PBS to include those printable cards! The cards include info on what time period the dinosaur is from, a photo of how large the dinosaur was compared to a child, what they ate, what their name means, along with a few other details. He can't read yet, but there is a lot of info on the card that he can understand through the symbols. (fish for carnivore, leaf for herbivore, both for omnivore)

As you can see, my son had fun trying to match up dinosaurs from his collection to the dinosaurs on the cards.



We were at a family gathering yesterday and Aidan was telling people about the different dinosaurs and then my husband and I would chime in with any other fun facts we have learned. This Dinosaur Train has been a good learning experience for the whole family!

Read more...

Dress-Up Organization

Another genius idea just shared with me from my friend Kim. The same creative genius behind the pirate ship and build a house (and I hear that there is a Santa's workshop in the works for December - she is very creative with the appliance boxes!).

She scored some great costumes on the after-Halloween clearance sales, and combined with all her other cool dress-up stuff she already had, she was just tired of it all getting wrinkled and messy in a tub or just getting dumped out of the tub. So last night they went and bought this garment rack at Walmart for $10. They only put it halfway up so the kids can easily help themselves.



I think that is a very clever solution. The kids will easily be able to see what they have, find what they want and put it away when done. Thanks for sharing Kim!!!!!

Read more...