Dinosaur Egg Fossils

This past week was my son's sixth birthday. We had a hard time deciding on a theme and after much deliberation we decided on dinosaurs. What sealed the deal was the idea for a dinosaur hunt from a book that he considers his favorite right now; a boys only book.

I had to scramble for ideas since this was all decided about a week prior to the party; isn't that always the way it happens? Thank you Internet! Also, thank you KBN (a group of kid blogger) for all the great ideas.

Dinosaur Egg Fossils which I found here.

What you will need is coffee grounds, flour, salt, sand, water and small plastic dinosaurs.Follow the recipe from attached link and combine in a bowl. I let my boys mix the ingredients, which turned out to be messy. I am warning you. They want to touch it and throw it at each other.

Once it has reached a bread dough consistency, you add the dinosaur. Then shape into an egg. Mine ended up more like an oval pancake.

You will bake them150° for 20 minutes per instructions, but mine took about an hour. Once dry, I hid them outside for the kids to find. Don't laugh because they look like cat poop! I was cracking up once I put them down. It didn't matter because the kids loved it. As a bonus it smells super yummy; coffee.

We then broke them open over our sand table and had some dino play.

Want more dinosaur ideas?

Check out Sense of Wonder's blog:
Dinosaur Fossils
D  is for Dino Dig

The Imagination Tree has a dinosaur land.

Dinosaur songs over at Carrots are Orange.

Lots of dino ideas at Make, Do & Friend.

Teach Preschool shape dinosaurs. 

Not A Stick

I found another great book at our library; Not A Stick by Antoinette Portis. It is a very simple book that reminds us (adults) that a stick is not just a stick. I don't know about your children, but my boys are always picking up sticks on our walks. They normally end up as swords, but sometimes they are walking sticks, cabins, bug collectors, and more.

I was hoping to come up with a great art activity to go along with this book. I got some great ideas from my fellow KBN blogger friends, which are listed at the end of this post. I had all my ideas ready to go and then my boys decided to take control.

See, not everything is perfect in the real world. Kids sometimes do not want to do what you have planned. I just roll with it.

If you are looking for great activities to go with the book check these out:

Growing a Jeweled Rose Alligator Stick

Stick ideas from The Good Long Road

The Outlaw Mom's Twig and Ribbon Princess Wand

Teach Preschool had a guest post on No Time for Flashcards about this same book!

Boy Mama has a great post on sticks and outdoor play

Red Ted Art has a stick man

WordPlayHouse has acorn fairies and stick rafts and fishing rods


What do you do with sticks?

Strawberry Time

It is that time of year again; strawberry picking time. I love it and so do my boys. We eat them, make jam, and of course mash them up to put on yogurt, ice cream, and pancakes. It is delicious.

This year I could not make it to our MOMS Club strawberry picking outing. Luckily a mom picked some up for me, as you can see below (just a few).

We washed them, cut the tops off, and then mashed them up. 

I then added a bit of sugar to sweeten. I was not sure when I could make them into jam, so into the freezer they went. A select few went into my favorite popsicle maker (Zoku) and we made real 100% fruit popsicles!

I wish I had a picture of the final results, however my family ate them faster than I could make them and photograph them! UPDATE- I found one!

I also kept a batch out so we could put it on our home made yogurt (this is a new venture for us), and to put on pancakes.

What do you do with your fresh picked strawberries?