Rawr!

So max loves dinosaurs.  Actually that is like saying water is wet.  Max loves dinosaurs to almost the obsessive level that he loved elephants when he was three years old.  For anyone with a kid on the spectrum, you know what I'm talking about.  When something clicks with them it's like the heavens move and they can't stop from eating drinking and breathing whatever subject has caught their fascination.  And once in a great while I score big with a project and happen to catch max in a groove with the subject, this time somehow I managed to capture him ready for a huge dinosaur kick RIGHT when I had dinosaur week planned for school.  It was really nice.  There was no struggle, no feeling like a broken record with the "max come sit down" over and over when he's not into whatever we're doing for school.  It was really nice for a change.

Anyway here are the books we used for the week.  The only problem with them (and if I had realized this before I started I wouldn't have bought the Aliki books) was that they were written prior to 1990.  Which means that they didn't know about the giant meteor yet or the fact that dinosaurs eventually became birds etc.  We have an eyewitness dinosaurs book on order right now, which hopefully will give us some more updated information.

So we started out the week by doing a couple of those wooden 3d dinosaur skeleton puzzles, which I remember loving to do at his age.  Unfortunately with his fine motor issues he got frustrated trying to help me put them together, but when it came time to paint them, man I had his full attention.  Again, something about being allowed to paint and draw on wood really appeals to him.  (By the way the T-Rex is apparently named Fint and the Brachiosaurus is named Sam)

Then we tried the smithsonian digging up a t-Rex kit.  This was not so successfull.  First it comes with a cute "tools" kit, which you quickly realize is inadequate to the job.  The goggles don't fit right and max couldn't take them off fast enough.  And the little wooden "hammer and chisel" is so weak that I felt like I was going to break it trying to chop through their rock sand.  And speaking of chopping, there is NO way anyone without adult like strength could get through that crap.  It took me the better part of an hour to chop out that whole dinosaur and I was sooo sore afterwards.  I realize that  some folks probably make this a week long thing, but there was no way I was going to get max to keep up the mental stamina for just uncovering a bone at a time.  In retrospect it was not an appropriate project for him. Oh well.

At least he enjoyed playing with the water while washing the dinosaur bones for me!

I should also mention that this whole dinosaur kick started when we were outside one day and he decided to start making dinosaur skeletons out of branches and twigs. I was proud of myself for figuring out how to print this picture out and he had a good time helping me label it.

Our week culminated with a visit to a natural history museum at a nearby college.  Free admission, great collection, beautiful campus, plus awesome dinosaurs!

Next week I am trying an experiment, we are going to start a segment on the Human Body and I am going to spread out school a little more and make it last two weeks.  We are adding another hour with max's speech therapist, so trying to cram a subject into one week was making us a little bit grumpy.