Blog Hoppin Counter Hints

My friends over at Blog Hoppin are sponsoring a fantastic linky.  You can go and visit it here.



Each day this week, teachers will be posting helpful hints, time-savers, etc.  I love what they have posted so far and I know I'll be checking in all week to see what ideas people share.  Here's my little helpful hint about collecting counters and manipulatives for math activities.

1.  Rob your children.  That's right.  If you are teaching about  transportation and your child has 50 matchbox cars, grab them.  Veterans' Day?  Steal those green plastic army soldiers for a week.

Plastic Dinos Shamelessly Stolen

2.  Visit the party isle of your local Target or Dollar store.  My favorite thing to buy lately are boxes of "Table Scatter" I can find in Target's dollar area.  For $1 you can find seasonal objects that supposedly rational people use to decorate tables at a party.  Most of these look like jewels, which will coax any child to a math center.  Check out the images I found with a google search here.

Leaf-shaped Table Scatter

Scatter Used as Counters to Demonstrate Odd & Even

 3. Finally, go outside.  Some of the best manipulatives I've used have been found on the ground.  Go for a walk and gather acorns.  Have your students search for the most beautiful pebbles they have ever seen.  Have a friend bring back shells from a trip to the beach.

4.  As a last resort, print out pictures.  Find these St. Patrick's Day counters and number cards for FREE at my store on TPT here.   Here is a shameless plug for another product with more seasonal picture counters on TPT:   click here

St. Patrick's Day Counters

Dinosaurs in Denver

Tyrannosaurus Rex at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

 Denver is such a wonderful place to study prehistoric life.  With museums and excavation sites in the immediate area, Jr. paleontologists-in-training can immerse themselves in study.  

Trilobite Fossil at DMNS

 At the Denver Museum of Nature and Science Pumpkin and Little Dude were able to follow Earth's story from the beginning of life in the seas... 

Beautiful Fossilized Crinoids

...to the Cretaceous where Allosaurus attacks the Stegosaurus and Duck-billed dinos roamed...

Hadrosaur (Duck-billed)

 to the extinction of the dinosaurs and the development of mammals...

The Kids Impressed with an Entelodont

And on to the Ice Age!  There were a number of fossils from the Ice Age.  The highlight was seeing volunteers at the Lab working to uncover the tusk of a mastodon.

Mammoths!

Viewing the Lab at Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Although smaller, the Morrison Natural History Museum nearby is a real gem.  Their website spoke of the hands-on nature of this museum, but falls short of describing how interactive it really is.

Little Dude and a T-Rex

 Little Dude and Pumpkin were able to interact with everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. They could touch all of the fossils and fossil casts to explore how dinosaurs and other pre-historic creatures were like.  

T-Rex Forearm

Allosaur Skull

Allosaur Leg

Footprints!

Footprints of Apatosaurus

Apatosaurus Baby Footprints

The absolute highlight of the visit was the opportunity to view and help work on uncovering an Apatosaurus skull (His name was Kevin, as Pumpkin reminds me).  Yes - I said they WORKED ON this real fossil.  

Apatosaurus Skull in Sandstone

This tool chips away the sandstone.

Handing Over Tools

Pumpkin and the Milksnake

Feeding time at the museum.  They had a number of reptiles and amphibians that have lived in the area for millions of years.  The kids watched the volunteers feed and care for them and even got to touch a couple.

Mammoth Skull & Tusks

Sabertooth Skull

Sloth Skull

Mammoth Tooth

Pterrasaur 

Ammonite

One other lucky thing about our visit was that we were able to speak with  Dr. Robert "Bob" Bakker, a paleontologist and author.  He signed one of his books for us, a great one appropriately named,  Dinosaurs!  It was a wonderful visit.

Meeting Dr. "Bob"

Dr. "Bob" and Fans