Digging for Dino's!

After seeing the forecast for the next week, I realized our outside fun was over...for awhile anyways. 90-100 degree temps are here, and that equals some pretty antsy kiddo's! I searched Pinterest for some fun inside activities & I think I found the perfect one as it involves something that will keeping them cool...ice!

This activity involves digging in a big block of ice for Dinosaurs...and of course we have plenty of those on hand.(I also threw in a couple of zoo animals too...why not?!) ^^

Once Bobo found out what our activity was for the day, he got out one of his Dinosaur books that was about digging for dinosaur bones and started studying...I really ♥ my little "Ross" ^^ 

I knew yesterday that we would be working on this project, so I started preparing it last night since it involves layering the dinosaurs in ice. If you put everything in at once, then the dino's would sink all the way to the bottom and what fun is that?! I started off with a big freezer safe food container (Rubbermaid) and added about an inch of water and let that freeze before putting in any of the dino's. Once the first layer was frozen, I added 3 dino's and then another layer of water and let it sit overnight. First thing this morning I added 3 more dino's with another layer of water, and then a couple hours later, one more layer of everything. It's now 3:30 in the afternoon and 103 degrees out, so this is a perfect time for them to start digging! The last layer wasn't 100% frozen but it was close enough, so I set the container into a bowl of cold water so I'd be able to get the big ice cube out easily and then put it into another large container to catch all the water and ice chips...because let's face it, this is going to get messy! So once everything was ready,I put on their craft aprons,  gave them some spoons and let them have at it!

They spent a couple of hours on this project and we still didn't get all the dino's & animals out before dinner, so we put the rest back in the freezer so they can finish it up tomorrow. We will definitely be doing this activity again, the kids both said that this was their most favorite thing in the whole world! That right there makes this a total success ^^

**Some additional suggestions that I have gotten from friends was to add sand so they can't see what they are digging out, and also keeping some salt handy to help loosen the ice. These are both great ideas I will try next time we do this outside! 

I hope you all have a great weekend! Stay cool ♥

Dinosaurs, Math, and Chinese...Oh My!

Today we got a surprise package from Oma, and it contained 4 amazing new books for the twinkies! My favorite of course is First Thousand Words in Chinese, we will definitely have a lot of fun with this one! They already know a ton of words in Chinese but I know about two-ish????... so I think I'll be reading & learning along with them. The timing could not be more perfect as I have a lot of downtime this week to recover, so snuggling up in bed with the kids & a bunch of books sounds like a great plan to me!