marcus + his 'dinorama'

a few weeks ago marcus came home from school - business as usual - with his trusty agenda and workbook in his navy canvas briefcase. yes seriously. but this time his workbook had some exciting news:

his. first. ever. homework. assignment.

a dinosaur diorama.

or as he has decided to call it: his 'dinorama'. it actually makes a lot of sense right?

as i read over the assignment, i wondered honestly - how would i set marcus up for success on this one? a three year old making his own 'dinorama'? and to be as hands-off as possible? and to really let him do the work?

tall order miss adrianne. tall order. but one part of her instructions really stuck out to me: tackle the project a little bit at a time. this made so much sense. so here are my tips on how to set your three year old up for success when building a dinorama, or conquering any other tall order of an at-home project.

1. first off. learn about the assigned dino. marcus was lucky enough to draw the t-rex. so i whipped out his dino books. and i whipped out the ipad and scoured youtube for age appro t-rex vids. and right away, a few facts stuck out in the kid's head:
- t-rex is the king of the dinos
- t-rex is a bully. he doesn't have a lot of friends. the other dinos are afraid he will eat them.
- which he will. he doesn't eat plants. he eats meat. as in. other dinos.
- he bites.
2. set the scene. when i asked marcus what kind of scene he wanted to make he kept talking about the t-rex being the king dino and eating and biting the other dinos. i kept asking questions, giving him options to help him shape his own dinorama scene. after our pint sized brainstorm session, marcus had decided it wasn't going to be bright and happy. he wanted dark. scary. blood. biting. king of the dinos.
3. get resourceful. you know all those toys you have buried in the storage bins in the play area? if your bins look like our bins - they have everything you need to build a dinorama. so we pulled out: his wooden 3d dino puzzle. his thomas the train lego set. his arts and crafts bin. a fun foam craft set. play doh. from this pile of buried goods, we had scored big: we had our t-rex. we had a few tiny dinos to choose from to play the role of 'dinner'. we had cool lego rocks and grass. we had white fun foam bones. red play doh for blood. marcus also wanted clouds and wanted to take the 3d cloud decals off his wall. done and done.
4. set him up for success: we had found everything we needed but still had a lot of work to do. we literally did one step a day for a week:
- we cut a cardboard crown out. he glue-and-glittered-the-you-know-what-out-of-it.
- he smushed up a tiny ball of red play doh and used his pint sized fingers to make little indents for the bones. this was easily his fave part. marcus further smushed the play doh onto the green lego ground. then we filled his indents with glue, and he popped the bones into the blood. he loves the blood and bones.
- i let him cut tiny pieces of double sided tape, which i then popped around the cloud edges. this part was my fave. i cut two pieces of a walmart plastic bag. he smushed the plastic into a crumpled mess. then i stuck the cloud frame on top. then we folded the edges inwards. voila. 3d clouds. thanks walmart.
- he chose his paint colours. black on the outside because the t-rex is 'killing in the night'. he painted that box like a champ. i set him up with sponges and three plates of gray. white. black. and he layered the sponges to make a stormy night sky. this part took coaching but i am pretty proud of say i didn't touch a single sponge :)
- he painted the ground green. easy shmeezy.
- now came the part where i broke the rules and put my mom hands in the non-mom-cookie-jar. to hold the weight of the dinner dino, we had to use krazy glue. we had tried his white glue and it wasn't strong enough. so. GASP. he put the dino where he wanted him and i glued it for him. pardon my stuck together fingers people.

5. it is amazing when you watch this tiny little man work away. a little at a time. on a cool project, only to see it come together and look pretty dinorific. yes. i coached him from the sidelines and set his craft table up for dinorama success. but he planned it. he painted it. he proudly blood + bone + bit it. he is three years old and he worked darn hard on his first ever homework.

and pardon my proud mama moment while i add that i can't wait for james to see his awesome work and also to see all of the other kid's dinoramas at this week's dinosaur exhibit:

gold star kid. your king of the dinos is absolute awesomesauce and so.are.you.

-proud mama
-aka kare
xo