Dinosaurs!!!

Next week, we start back up with My Father's World kindergarten and our first unit of the New Year is on dinosaurs.  LittleBear doesn't know much about dinosaurs and I think was a bit confused about them, so an idea came to me...Dinoday!!!

These were the kinds of dinosaurs who made the tracks

Saturday we did something I have been wanting to do for a while now.  We made the trek about an hour and a half away to Dinosaur Valley State Park to see dinosaur tracks in the Paluxy riverbed.

Looking for tracks...

 
It was really neat to be walking along (or in) the river and find several different kinds of tracks there in the water.

The view from midriver!

Because of sediment in the water, not all of the tracks were visible, but we did see quite a few! 

Acrocanthosaurus print

Pluerocoelus print (it was huge!)

Acrocanthosaurus print

After seeing the tracks, we decided to check out nearby Dinosaur World, which boasts a half mile walking path with over 100 scale models of all different types of dinosaurs.  We all enjoyed it!

Watch out family!  The T-Rexes are descending!

 LittleBear said his favorites were any of the "friendly" dinosaurs (aka the plant eaters), Grams and I liked the family of dinosaurs that I can't remember their names (Apatosaurus, maybe?), Jeff liked the Tricerotops, and Grampa's favorite was the Velociraptor. 

Grams & Mommy's favorite

Daddy's favorite

Grampa's favorite

Even LadyBear seemed to like looking at them! 

 

 Happy LadyBear...

LittleBear also got to "dig for fossils" and came out with two shark teeth and a small something else.

Fossils!!

It was a really fun day and I think LittleBear is now much more excited to learn about dinosaurs!

Twelve Symbols of Christmas: We didn't get to finish...

A few of you have asked about our Twelve Symbols of Christmas study and unfortunately, much like this star ornament, we didn't get to finish (LittleBear got the flu just before Christmas).  We'll try again next year!!

Merry Christmas 2013 from the Browns!

We wish we could send everyone a card, but alas, that's just not in the budget. So consider this our Christmas card to you!

Here are the kids in their Christmas pj's, made by Bethany:

And as a bonus, enjoy this video of the older kids in our LifeGroup performing the Christmas story from earlier this month. (That's LittleBear as Joseph, and Jeff making a cameo as a wise man.)



Merry Christmas, everyone!

Twelve Symbols of Christmas: Christmas Lights/Candles and Candy Canes!

Tuesday, we talked about Christmas lights/Candles and why lights at Christmas are important.  We learned how important it is being a light for Jesus to the dark world around us and how he is the light of the world.  After dinner, we did our own version of the Minivan Express and went on a tour of Christmas lights around our city.   Thankfully, WacoFork had already figured out where the best spots were, so we had a good idea of where to go.  Both kids enjoyed it although LittleBear could not understand why he needed a ticket to get into the minivan...oh well!  I don't have any pictures from this because it was dark, but we did have a good time :)

Yesterda, we talked about candy canes!  As it would happen, LadyBear loves them and LittleBear doesn't at all...go figure, but we talked about them anyway.  We read a great book called The Legend of the Candy Cane that LittleBear cannot get enough of and learned all about what makes candy canes special at Christmas time.  Go get the book from your library, it's great!

We made beaded candy cane ornaments and then went and passed out candy canes to random people we came across.  Mostly, I let LittleBear pick who he wanted to give them to, but I did make a few suggestions including the two men who repaired our garage door today, the friendly workers at our Post Office who always have a smile for us and the friendly manager at our local Hobby Lobby who always loves seeing the kids.  Otherwise, he gave them out to whomever he wanted, which was everyone in the post office and a bunch of people in Hobby Lobby.  Who wouldn't want a candy cane from a little blonde boy who comes up to you and says, "Excuse Me, Merry Christmas!"  We ran out of candy canes and all he wanted to do was go to the store so we could get more and do it again this morning...which we did :)

 LittleBear on a mission to find who to give the last candy cane to...

I think my favorite story from the whole thing was this lady who gave him a dollar at the post office (I tried to politely decline) and then he turned around on his own and put that dollar in the Salvation Army bucket outside Hobby Lobby.  He then gave the bell ringer a candy cane and she gave him a dum dum lollipop, which he thoroughly enjoyed on the ride home.

This will for sure be an annual tradition in our house!!!