Glow-In-The-Dark Dinosaur Fossil Hunt

The museums of the dinosaur trail (a series of museums across Montana with bones, fossils, and other prehistoric paraphernalia) are set to open for the summer season on Memorial Day weekend.  Hoping to jump back onto the trail this year, I've been looking for ways to gear up some dino-related excitement in the house.

So, when I saw glow-in-the dark, build your own fossil sets from Ja-Ru (who make excellent little dino-digs) hanging tantalizingly from the shelf in the cereal aisle of the grocery store, I snatched one down with glee.

My thinking was, that I could leave the "fossils" out in a window all day on Wednesday (we have church Wednesday evenings, and the younger girls are up well past dark that evening anyway)...

...and then place them around in our nice dark basement, not exactly hidden, but where they wouldn't be terribly obvious...

...unless the lights were off.

It would have worked great if:

1. The fossils actually glowed in the dark for longer than 30 seconds once the lights were off (I would suggest buying an inexpensive wooden set, and painting it with glow-in-the-dark paint, instead).
2. I had remembered that by staying up late, the girls would be growing tired, and might not be up for too much of a challenge (I probably shouldn't have mixed the two sets that came in the together, or spread them over the entire basement).
3. I had made a map of the hidden pieces, so completely lost pieces could be found.
4. I hadn't snapped a few of the bones in half while breaking them free of the packaging.

Actually, the last two probably didn't matter so much.  We simply glued the broken bones back together (not all fossils found in the field are intact, you know).  And, as rain set in for the rest of the week, and we were stuck inside anyway, we took our time searching (most digs take more than one expedition to complete), and finally found every last piece (with great cheers and accolades to the finder of the final fossil), last night.

It might not have been the exactly the experience I was aiming for, but we are much more focused on fossils now than we were a week ago.

Rainy Day Boredom Buster - Paper Towel Templates

We've just emerged from a week so rainy it would make Seattle seem dry.  Naturally, I've been keeping my eye out for easy, and inexpensive boredom busters to ward off cabin fever, while we've all been stuck inside - like this great idea from Maman...je sais pas quoi faire!!!, for coloring in the dotted designs on paper towels.

While I was out at the grocery store this weekend, I made sure to grab a cheap roll of paper towels, with an interesting design.  Of course, then we woke up to a beautiful sunny day today (not that I'm complaining).  It turns out though, that coloring in the little dotted patterns is also a great way to keep hands busy during long, family read-aloud sessions(we should have another book to review, shortly).

Our markers weren't as fine as the ones they used over at Maman...je sais pas quoi faire!!!, so our designs were a little messier, but that was okay...

...because we quickly discovered...

...that if we taped the towels down (to keep them from slipping around) over white paper...

...they turned into fantastic templates for designs on the paper underneath...

...which we thought was pretty nifty.

Cabin Fever Beating Boredom Buster - #1

Perusing Mr. Poppers Penguins...

...while preparing peanuts...

...for a pleasant snack of...

...protein packed peanut butter...

...to be eaten while pontificating with pronouncements prefaced  in " p" whenever possible.

Summer Fun Day 1 - Toilet Paper Tube Playhouse

We kicked off our summer fun on this on again off again, rainy, long weekend with an indoor project.

1 large pile of empty toilet paper tubes (somewhere around 200), that I'd been saving up for a rainy day, a couple of rolls inexpensive masking tape, the tail end of our freezer paper (you can buy it by the roll in most grocery stores - it's a "must have" in our boredom buster supplies), a few children, a smidge of creativity (and Disney's Swiss Family Robinson playing in the background for inspiration), and just like that - we had the makings for a perfect afternoon.

Summer, when every child can be a homeschooler :)

Blanket "Nest"

Amazon has many of its Kindle books, which you can read through a free Kindle app on your PC or laptop, available to borrow and read at no cost, if you have an Amazon Prime membership, or through many "Library to Go" type programs.  It's a nice feature when you need a rainy day boredom buster idea, like the one we found in J. Elizabeth Mills' The Everything Kids Easy Science Experiments Book for today.

Building a nest out of blankets...

...was just what we needed...

...to inspire a little science themed play...

...before nap time.

It's great to be a homeschooler.

Building a Bigger Pyramid - Marshmallow and Toothpick Tetrahedrons Take II

I had every intention of posting a number of video links, and book recommendations to round out, and finish off our "chocolate week". But, what started out this morning, as a quick and easy boredom buster for the younger children...


...turned into a full scale family building project...


...as the older children joined in, to end out the year in an effort to outdo...


...A's marshmallow and toothpick Sierpinski inspired creation from the first of the year.


It took all day, two bags of marshmallows, and somewhere around five boxes of toothpicks, but we did it!


Unfortunately, one of our tetrahedral towers proved unstable, and before I had even finished snapping photos...


...we realized our pyramid was becoming a kinetic sculpture.


That proved to be entertaining, too.


Eying the destruction, we realized it really was only one of the structures that had failed.


And, with some quick work we were able to rescue the other three.


The younger children want to fix up the failed tetrahedron, too...


...but they have they have quite a bit of work ahead, enough at least, to last us into the new year.


It's great to be a homeschooler.