Dragons and Dinosaurs

This week was Tobias's first birthday.  He's really interested in dinosaurs.  With Chinese New Year happening this week, we decided to celebrate the letter D for his birthday making dinosaurs and dragons.  I cut some paper plates in half and some shapes out of construction paper like triangle plates and horns, rectangle legs, heads and necks.  The kids could glue or tape whatever pieces they wanted to try to create dinosaurs.  I also provided feathers and eye stickers for their dinosaurs.  If it hadn't been a crowd, we might have painted, but instead they had markers to color.  On our own, we talked about different types of dinosaurs and their traits like the plates of a stegosaurus, the horns and crests of ceratopsians, and the armor and clubbed tail of ankylosaurus.  We mentioned raptors and other dinosaurs that have feathers.





We ordered some dragon blowers from Discount School Supply.  They don't require any additional supplies, which was nice but don't expect them to last long.  Of course, with toddler activities, we don't usually expect them to last long.  Genevieve thought they were great fun though.  The flames are entertaining.

We created some fireworks art with glitter glue and black paper.  We also used some new scratch boards that we got for Christmas.  This one had glitter behind the black so made a great shiny picture.

We read The Birthday Box, which was a great book for a first birthday about the fun that can be had with a box.  We enjoyed Rexerella, My Dinosaur ABC, and Dinosaur Parade, hearing about different types of dinosaurs.  Our copy of Rexerella hasn't held up great, but what does one expect with a pop up book around two young kids.  Our Family Reunion is the touching story of a young girl who's father is a migrant worker and is only able to come home for Chinese New Year.  My First Chinese New Year introduces some of the traditions of Chinese New Year.  Red is a Dragon doesn't particularly deal with Chinese New Year, but discusses color, dragons, and some of the other things that might be seen during Chinese New Year like firecrackers and incense.  I love The Last Dragon, which is a little more wordy than the other books.  Your little one might need a little more patience to make it through this book.  But it's the story of a boy who is forced to stay with a great aunt in Chinatown.  He doesn't think he'll have any fun, but discovers a broken down dragon in a store.  He takes on the project of repairing the dragon and becomes friends with many of the people in the neighborhood.

Genevieve and Tobias enjoyed some time with Grandma Mohr.  We read How to Babysit a Grandma and Llama Llama Gram and Grandpa.  These are some of our favorites for when grandparents visit.

The library had a visit from the California Raptor Center, so we got to see some owls and hawks, feathers and skulls.  Tobias had two sign classes this week.  The first was about things that go like cars and planes.  This was great timing as he got some cars he loves for his birthday.  The second was about bath time, which meant there was water to splash in and bubbles to watch.  Bubbles are great as they help with eye hand coordination, tracking, depth perception, and fine motor skills when popping.