DIY Printable House

Just found this cute tiny printable house.

Thanks Enchanted Learning!

It's just the right size for the itty-bitty people from Made by Joel's Travel Size Paper City Paris.

Fossil Activities

Okay, this one is close to my heart.  

I have always harbored a deep desire to go out into the wilderness and dig for bones.  Unfortunately my fear of student loans outweigh my interest in getting a second degree in paleontology and so I'll have to settle for being a B-grade rock hound and fossil hunter.  

This beautiful camarasaurus skeleton lives (dies? continues to be dead?) at the amazing Dinosaur National Monument.  If you're ever near Dinosaur, Montana (real place) definitely check it out.  They have so many dinosaur fossils that they literally don't care if you touch them.  A park ranger actually went out of her way to make us take pictures of ourselves feeling this enormous femur.

HomeGrownFun has nice, simple directions for making your own fossils with Plaster of Paris.

The National Park Service also has a special site full of resources for National Fossil Day- which I just discovered is a real thing that happens!  

I am a little bummed that I've been missing out on Fossil Day festivities all these years.  But you better believe I'm going to make up for lost time this October 14th!  I think I'll go to Fossil, Oregon pop. 473 (also a real place) and do it up Fossil style.

And of course, check out my awesome worksheet with crossword at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Desert Activities

Springtime in Utah!  Seeing wildflowers in full bloom in the desert was amazing.  

My crossword about desert ecosystems is up on my TeachersPayTeachers store.

More fun desert stuff:

 Meerkats: The Movie is a fantastic documentary about these desert-dwelling critters.  

 What's cuter than baby meerkats?  Nothing!  Nothing is cuter!  This documentary will make you feel like you are in an underground burrow snuggled up with a family of meerkats.  That may sound claustrophobic and/or unsanitary to some of you but trust me, it is a very endearing film.
  If you really want to get into it, you can follow up watching the film with a printable card game called "Meerkats Survive!" from National Geographic.  

  The idea of the card game is to catch prey and protect your pups from predators.  Whoever has the most pups once all the card are drawn wins.  It's a good way to help kids think about the interdependence of animals in a food web.  A lot more endearing than a card game with, say, millipedes as the hero.

Planet Lesson Plans and Activities

Well, I'm just finishing up a set of crosswords about the planets.  

NASA has tons of information for parents and teachers on their website.  You can search their lesson plans and activities by grade and length of time to complete.  Also, all of their photos and images are released into the public domain so they are usable for pretty much any purpose.  I like the idea of printing out actual photos of the planets and making them into a mobile.  If I get around to it I'll report back with pictures.

You can check out my Planet Earth crossword at my TeachersPayTeachers store.