Our Last Day Together

We knew our last day together was going to be special when we arrived and discovered that our baby dinosaur had finished hatching just in time for us all to meet her. She is a Spinosaurus from North Africa and she has a cute little sail on her back. Each little Paleontologist wanted to hold her and love on her when they met her.

What an action-packed last day this turned out to be!

First, we finished our T-Rex tooth necklaces.

After all of their hard work, the children were quite proud to wear them.

Then, we made dinosaur fossils by pressing our toy dinosaurs into play-doh and making imprints.

In group, we read a book and learned that no one really knows what happened to the dinosaurs. We talked about (and modeled) several different theories. There was a lot of giggling as we tried to make-up some of our own theories. One little paleontologist thinks that they might have found a great big space shuttle and flew to outer space. We decided they might live on Mars. Another guess was that they might all be here...they are just wearing silly disguises so that we do not recognize them. Who knows...maybe your neighbor is really a dinosaur?

Once the giggling stopped, I presented each child with a cup and a dinosaur frozen in a block of ice. We talked about how some scientists think that the Earth became too cold for the dinosaurs to live. As the paleontologist, it was up to each child to figure out how to get the frozen dinosaur in their cup out of the ice.

Boy did we get creative!

There was licking...

hitting...

and banging.

Before long, the little paleontologists started working together to find a solution to this challenging problem.

Several were able to free their dinosaurs from the ice!

A few even remembered that heat melts ice and asked to take their dinosaur outside into the sun. We took some out and, while we waited, we put the rest in the sink. There was cheering when they realized how fast warm water melts ice.

After our Icy Problem was solved, we finished making our Paleontologists.

They turned out absolutely adorable!

Then, we found out that dinosaur bones had been discovered outside in the sandbox.

As official Paleontologists, we knew without a doubt that it was our duty to find them!

So...we went on a dinosaur bone hunt!

Once we had found all of the dinosaur bones, we took them inside and put them together.

Turns out, we had found the skeleton of a Diplodocus dinosaur!

Here is our day in pictures...

What a great last day together!

Thank you so much for sharing in this experience with us!

I will leave this blog up so that you might continue to use it as a memory scrapbook of our

Amazing Camp-a-Saurus Adventure!

Today was SPLASH DAY!

This morning several of my friends started off their day by doing dinosaur rubbings. When we rubbed our crayons over the paper, a dinosaur magically appeared! Then, we used these cool tracers to trace and decorate dinosaurs.

In group this morning we learned about the Pteranadon. The children liked that Pteranadons did not have any teeth. They thought it was funny because the Pteranadons swallowed their fish whole. We pretended to be Pteranadons and flew around the room.

After group, we were so excited to go outside and have SPLASH DAY!

Here we are peeking out to see it all set up...

Once we started splash day, some of us took a moment to see what it was all about...

Others jumped right in and got MESSY:)

 It didn't take long until EVERYONE was joining in the fun!

We bathed our dinousaurs at the water table...

 played in the kiddie pool...

blew bubbles...

...and proudly caught them!

We slid in shaving cream on the slip-n-slide...

Ran through sprinklers to rinse off...

...and then slip-n-slided some more!

It was an awesome splash day!

Once we were ALL dried off and back in our normal clothes, we painted the T-Rex teeth that we made yesterday. One little girl pointed out that her dino tooth was yellow so her dinosaur must not have brushed his teeth and had a lot of sugar bugs. So, we pretended to brush them with a paint brush and turned them all white.

We had such a big morning that every child in group 1 fell sound asleep during our quiet rest time.

 When we woke up, we played some really fun games with the 5 children that were staying for the afternoon.

We played "Dinosaur, Dinosaur Where's Your Tooth?" first.

In this game someone in the circle hides the tooth. We all pretend that it is in our laps.

When we start to chant a silly little rhyme, the "dinosaur" comes looking and tries to guess who has his tooth...

This game turned into a game of  Hide and Go Seek (Dino Style:). Everyone would run and hide their eyes while one child would find a place around the room to hide the tooth. We would sing,  "Oh Where, Oh Where Has Our Dino Tooth Gone"... and all my little paleontologists would scramble to search for it.  They would shriek with excitement when someone found it.

Here is our day in pictures...

We (Gabby and Teresa) are sad that tomorrow is our last day of this big dinosaur adventure that we've been on with your amazing children. It has been such an honor to spend our week with them, and to watch their eyes light up with wonder and excitement as they've discovered new things.

They have worked together...

Helped each other...

...and even taught each other new things.

Your little paleontologists have made some very special friendships this week!

Thank you for sharing your sweet children with us.

Question of the Day

What is your favorite thing that we have done on our Camp-a-Saurus Adventure?

Our "Dino-mite" 3rd Day

BREAKING NEWS

After a long night's wait....our baby dinosaur is hatching!!!!!

Excited camp 1 Paleontologists made numerous scientific observations throughout the day and diligently watched over our little baby dinosaur as it began to break out of its shell. There has been much debate as to what kind of dinosaur our baby will be. 

With a sweet face like this...there is no doubt that we will love it no matter what kind of dinosaur it turns out to be!

Here's some of what we did today...

Camp 2 created their very own Land Before Time sticker scenes.

Here's a young paleontologist that found time to do a little extra dinosaur research:)

Camp 1 learned two new big kid vocabulary words today..."Herbivore" and "Carnivore".

We made a chart comparing and constrasting Herbivores vs. Carnivores. I was so proud of all the enthusiasm and participation throughout the entire lesson. What a smart group of children this is!

We also learned this week that T-Rex's had about 40 sharp, meat eating teeth that were on average the size of a banana! We counted the teeth in this T-Rex mouth and compared it to how many teeth we have in our mouths. We discovered that the T-Rex had a lot more teeth than we do.

Today, both camps exteneded that lesson with an art project. We used "MAGIC" clay and made T-Rex Teeth! 

We are going to let the tooth magically harden over night and then paint them. Once they are painted, we have made beautiful necklaces to wear them on! Here we are making our T-Rex necklaces...

In Paleontology Class today camp 2 practiced removing dinosaurs (chocolate chips) from the ground (a cookie). Each paleontologist worked and worked...

Snuck a few yummy bites along the way...

...And eventually all of their hard work paid off!

Group 1 also practiced looking for dinosaur bones in Paleontology Class today.

Inside this cool block of sediment are Triceratop bones! That's the dinosaur that we learned about today!

After much time and amazing team work, we uncovered a bit of our first Triceratops bone!!!!!!!

Group 1 learned about other prehistoric animals today.

One super smart child pointed out that this mammoth sure looks a lot like a hairy elephant!

We played a fun game called "Jump the Pit".

We jumped as far as we could so that we wouldn't fall in the "tar pit". The tar pit kept growing bigger and bigger.

Look how far he jumped!

Here is today's picture video...

After our awesome day...

I'm betting your little paleontologists will sleep well tonight!