Russell Ramblings: From Dinosaurs to Octopuses

Our week was different with Daddy home recovering from knee surgery, but it was much more normal than last week in that we were all home.  We enjoyed wrapping up our dinosaur study and delving into octopuses (Yes, octopuses!  I always thought it was octopi, which, from what I understand is also correct, but octopuses is every bit as correct.)

To finish up dinosaurs, we made an additional page to go along with If the Dinosaurs Came Back?  This book came along with our kindergarten literature package from My Father's World.  It gives ideas of what jobs the dinosaurs could do for us if they came back.  The illustrator of the book does all the dinosaurs in color and all the rest of the pictures in black and white.  We mimicked the illustrator's style and came up with a job we thought dinosaurs could do. AJ drew a picture of a triceratops digging a hole, and CJ drew a plesiosaurs giving rides in our creek.

Each unit we spend time outside with our nature journals.  For dinosaurs, we measured off 110 feet for the length of an ultrasaurs.  We calculated how fast we could run this distance and went in search of plant we thought the ultrasaurs would've eaten.  Below the boys are showing off the plants they found.  We took a picture in front of these tall weeds by our creek because we discussed how this big dinosaur likely went for tall things.

To begin our octopus study, we read a book called An Octopus is Amazing.  Let me just say, ahem, that I learned a few things about octopuses from reading this book.  I had no idea an octopus lays 200,000 eggs and then proceeds to weave them together in multiple strands that she hangs from the roof of her den.  I remarked to my husband that it is amazing what I'm learning from a kindergarten curriculum!

With each unit, MFW has a Bible verse to memorize and a lesson.  The lesson for the octopus is "Even the octopus praises the Lord."  We made tambourines out of small paper plates and a spoonful of rice (since octopus eggs are half the size of a grain of rice) inside them.  We stapled the edges together and then painted them.  We are using these to praise the Lord while singing this week.  Below, they are painting their tambourines.

The boys are excited to continue studying octopuses and complete our wall mural we started of the ocean floor - pictures coming next week.

How was your week?  What new thing did you learn?

This post is linked to the weekly wrap-up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.