My little Dino-boy

Mateo has developed a great love of all things dinosaurs lately. He even wants to sleep with his hard plastic dinosaurs. (Yes, I know that can be dangerous. I sneak in and remove them when he falls asleep.) While Diego was at school the other day, Mateo and I had some rare time alone. He, of course, wanted to play with his dinosaurs. I took the opportunity to take some pictures of my little Dino-boy.

Dinosaurios

Before his third birthday, we took our dino-crazed son to see a large anomatronic dinosaur exhibit and it was a big hit. We had a weeked of lovely weather recently so we decided to return now that Mateo is bigger and very much into dinosaurs himself. As you will see below he was not that thrilled.

A year ago Diego would never have done this. First of all, he would have been scared of the dinosaur and he would have been too shy since lots of people were standing there staring. He has grown up so much over the last year.
I have to admit that that dinosaur IS scary looking. I took the picture fast so that I wouldn't torture him for to long. He seemed to like some of the dinosaurs, but from a distance.

What my child is reading...

Many of my cyberbuddies have been studying dinosaurs lately so I decided to include some of our favorite dino-books this week for What my child is reading over at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns. D has been dino-obsessed for well over a year now. (I will soon post pictures of his very cool dinosaur-themed birthday party from last year.) Every week is dino-week around here so here are some (there are too many to list all of them) dinosaur books that we love.

Los Dinosaurios (Mi Pequena Enciclopedia)

If you are a Spanish-speaking family, I highly recommend this series of books, "Mi pequeña enciclopedia" (My little encyclopedia). We own several about pirates, insects, and jungle animals. At $3.99 a piece, I think that they are a great deal. They are great for teaching vocabulary about a certain topic.

Cómo juegan los dinosaurios con sus amigos?

This is an entire series of books that your child might like if they are afraid of the scary dinosaur books. In each book the dinosaurs are shown as if they have the same problems that children have, like not wanting to share, not wanting to go to bed, and not wanting to clean their room. D absolutely loves the book below that translates to "How do dinosaurs play with their friends?" All of these book are available in English.

Vivió algún dinosaurio cerca de tu casa? (Did any dinosaurs live close to your house?)

This was the very first dinosaur book that we ever owned. I include it because before D I had no idea how to talk about dinosaurs in Spanish. This book helped me a lot with some much needed vocabulary.

Life-sized Dinosaurs

Warning: If your child scares easily, this is NOT the book for you. My mother bought D this book for his birthday last year. Like I have said D is fascinated by dinosaurs and not at all scared. This really is a cool book. It is very large so that they can show pictures of a life-sized T-Rex mouth (it folds out), another dinosaur's claws (the name escapes me but I am sure that D would know), and a dinosaur egg. It even came with a poster of the T-Rex mouth as shown on the cover of the book and D has it above his bed. :)

Danny and the Dinosaur

My mother passed this book on to us recently. There are newer versions but we have the old version written in 1958. I can still remember my mother reading this book to me when I was little. Since the book is in English, my mother saved it and read it to D when she was visiting recently and he LOVED it. It is about a little boy, Danny, who wishes that he could play with a dinosaur while visiting a museum. A dinosaur hears him and comes to life. They leave the museum to play and explore the city. It is a simple book with a lot of repitition so D was able to understand most of it, even though his Spanish skills are still better. I did, however, notice while I was cruising through Amazon that they now have a Spanish version of this book. He may just get it for Christmas.

Toys my children ACTUALLY play with.

Just kidding.... kinda of. This was definitely M's favorite toy of the week. :)

My ACTUAL toy spotlighted this week is also not a toy. I want to preface this post with the fact that I am not affiliated with the company in anyway nor am I being compensated for my post or opinion. This just happens to be a product that my son loves and I wanted to share it in case it would be popular in your house too. Also, I would like to say that when it comes to kids' apparel we are usually very frugal. About 70% of the boys' clothes are hand-me-downs. I usually just buy new for special occasions or if it is really THAT cute. :) We are very lucky to have older cousins that are very generous.

On to the post... D is a HUGE, I mean HUGE, dinosaur fanatic. My husband found these shoes online and wanted to buy them for D as a gift for starting preschool. Since we have purchased these shoes, you will rarely see D's feet without them. They are made by a company called Dinosoles.

I wanted to put a picture of the exact pair of shoes that D has (and this is) but the only one available was small and hard to see. D picked out the T-Rex with flashing red eyes. The picture of the T-Rex is 3-D and the soles have an imprint of a dinosaur foot. To see a better picture and the other options of shoes and sandals, go to the link above.

3D T-Rex Low Top Black with Lights

Pros:

1. They make D very happy.

2. They are apparently comfortable. D is not one to grin and bear it. He would tell me if they bothered him.

3. The decorations are very durable and so far (3 months later) the shoes still look brand new.

Cons:

I can't talk D into wearing other shoes. They look kind of funny with his church clothes. :)

*** Don't forget to link up to get 2 more entries into the giveaway for a $25 Amazon Gift Card. For more information about this giveaway, click here.

***If you have a MckLinkey that you are hosting and you would like me to share it in a post this week with my readers, please look at my previous post (MckLinkey Fun.)

Toys my children ACTUALLY play with.

**** I have added a Mcklinky below if you would like to join us and share your favorite toys. We do a new toy every week so join us for the fun and share the toys your child ACTUALLY plays with this Thursday!

When my first son was born about 4 years ago, my husband and I thought that we needed to buy out Toy's R US on a weekly basis. I am pretty sure that they saw a spike in sales in 2006! With time and a tighter budget, we got smarter and much more particular about the toys that we would buy. Now every time I pick out a toy for the boys I give it the time vs. money test meaning how much time/fun can we get out of this for the price. I came up with the idea for "Toys my children ACTUALLY play with" this rainy (again) afternoon when I asked my son what he would like to play with. The answer, not surprisingly, was his bucket of dinosaurs. We bought this bucket of dinosaurs for about sixteen dollars for D's birthday last December at Toys R US. For the hours and hours and HOURS of playtime this toy has provided, I would definately say that it has been worth the money. Other more expensive toys have been collecting dust on the shelf for months while the dinosaurs have lots of playtime as they migrated to the ocean (our bathtub) or to the great desert (our sandbox.)

With Christmas (a.k.a shopping season) quickly approaching, I thought that it would be fun to share toys that we like (and do not like) with each other. If you want to participate, let me know. I will be posting a different toy each week, at least until Christmas.

Animal Planet Big Bucket of Dinosaurs

Pros:

1. Comes with 14 dinosaurs of different colors and sizes. (D can name them all! :)

2. Comes with two volcanos which make for good imaginative play.

3. Dinosaurs are very durable. Like I said, they have stood up to water, sand, and the occasional volcanic eruption at our house.

4. The bucket is very handy for keeping the dinosaurs together.

Cons:

1. The trees fall apart and leave small pieces that little brothers can eat.

2. The mat is made of thin plastic and even though it has not torn, it is very wrinkled.

Overall: I think that for the price, it is a good deal. If you bought that many dinosaurs of the same quality, it would cost you a lot more.

Dinosaurios

Computer issues have kept me from posting pictures so I am way behind on posting. My son is "dinosaurio" crazy so we did a week of dinosaur themed activities a couple of weeks ago.

This was D's favorite activity of the week. He must have made his "volcan" erupt 50 times. This was a super easy activity that I found on multiple websites. Just build your volcano out of play-doh, put a little baking soda in the hole, and add "vinagre" with a dropper.
We made the letter "H" for huesos (bones). I love the letters found on "No Time for Flashcards" but I always have to modify for Spanish words.

After being in hibernation for a couple of months (I rotate toys when they are driving me crazy or he is just not using them) we brought out the dinosaurs for dinosaur week. D had a blast playing with them. Here you see the dinosaurs at "dinosaur school" according to D. My favorite part was seeing D separate the dinosaurs into "carnivoros y herbivoros" without any coaching from me.