My son absolutely loves dinosaurs, and we were looking for some online games for him - educational yet entertaining and dinosaur related. After a lot of misses, we came across this pretty good game called Dinosaur World.

Why we like it:

• Easy for a five year old to navigate and play on his own.
• No killing or any type of violence.
• A lot of learning.
• Great graphics and animation.
• Really cool.

Downfalls

• You have to download the program, can't play online (but maybe this is an advantage also).
• In our case the mouse function breaks down, and our son has to use the arrow keys instead.
• Sometimes the game crashes.

Travel back in time and meet the Jurassic giants roaming a 3D dinosaur landscape.It's an old favourite - the game inspired by the groundbreaking computer animation of the BBC TV series Walking with Dinosaurs. Enjoy:Dinosaur World!

The other day we went to the Zoo with my boys (a five year old and a three year old). In the car, we were talking about which animals the kids would really like to see, and what animals would be there, etc. I was pumped because the kids love animals and showing them an elephant in a book and in real life doesn't compare. In a book, there's no movement, no comparison in size with the surroundings, no texture. My five year old son was especially excited, and he had a million questions for me about the zoo and the animals: "How do the giraffes drink waterwhen they're so tall? Do giraffes have a red tongue or a black one, like daddy says?" etc. Then we got the tickets and a map of the Zoo. So exciting! Jakub, the five year old, couldn't stop looking at the map and planning our trip around the Zoo: "We'll go see the elephants first, and then the Rhinos and then this and then that. I really want to see the eagle and the owl and the kangaroos." I was so happy. We came to the perfect spot. We also got this cool "passport" where the kids could stamp at a station near each animal to show they've been there, seen the particular animal. Also an awesome idea, I thought. Then we started our journey.

Today I tried a science olympics event in one of my classes.

You will only get this if you're a major physics geek (To see it bigger, click on the image):

I think I am one of the least "protective" parents in the world. I have a five year old, a two year old and now a two month old. They're all boys, and when they get wound up, they absolutely drive me crazy. But I love them to death, and of course I don't want them to get hurt. But on the other hand I know they have to get hurt to understand the world.(Somebody once told me that you don't really know how to ride a horse until you get thrown off the horse - same sort of idea.)

I really get annoyed at people that seem to think I am jeopardizing my sons' lives in some way and try to "fix" my way of raising MY kids. I remember clearly times when strangers or friends told me or my kids what to do (or more likely what not to do). I feel I have a very good sense of what my children can do, what they are capable of, how far they'll go. If I think my child isn't in danger, I don't think a stranger should interfere.

I got this emailed to me. Some of these patterns were really cool, so I'm posting it.

Check out these cool patterns with numbers:

A great activity I recently did with my son was a "life-line":

1. Take some letter sized printer paper and cut it in half (length wise). The child can do the cutting to practice their cutting skills with scissors.

2. Then tape the pieces together lengthwise to create a long strip of paper. We used a total of two pieces of paper (4 strips taped together) for my 5 year old son's life line, and three pieces of paper (6 strips taped together) for my life line (I'm a bit older than 5 so my life line had more going on than my son's).

3. Then, draw a long line down the centre of the long paper strip.

4. Label 0 at one end (to mark your child's birth) and your child's age on the other end (to mark how old he/she is now). Fill in the rest of the number line with all the years that are missing.

5. Then the fun part begins. You get to tell your child when they first talked, first walked. What major events happened in their lives, such as moving, going to preschool, learning to swim etc. For each event draw (or get your child to draw) a little picture to represent the event. My son also asked me to draw birthday cakes to represent each birthday (with the right amount of candles on each cake). He also asked me to remind him when he started to like dinosaurs, which colours he liked at what ages, etc.

The other weekend, we went to Kingston, Ontario. There, we visited the beautiful Queens University. I was very impressed with the arcitechture and the setting. The weather was nice, so we went for a stroll along the water. In a few different spots, we found burned papers, burned tests, burned notes. I took a few pictures, and even kept one page because it gave me pleasure to see it. Here is what I kept:

This is the time, end of school, end of exams, to burn everything and anything to do with a course you hated (and even sometimes the ones you loved). It is a sort of cleansing of the palet, cleansing of the brain of all the bad times, all the hours of studying and agonizing over silly tests, silly assignments. A way of starting the summer with a blank slate. Its a very visual way of "forgetting everything about the course minutes after leaving the examination room".

A teacher from Sherbrooke, Quebec wrote an interesting comment (along with a reference to an article from October, 2005). This teacher worked 19 years as a teacher and now is making $71,000 (before taxes that is). Here is what she wrote:

I too was astonished to see the huge salary gap between Quebec and everyone else. When teachers in this province say we are underpaid, we really mean it. Check out this part-time job article from 2005:

After-school special
Dawn taught math by day, but after the final bell had rung, it was phys-ed all the way
By JEAN-PHILIPPE PINEAULT -- Sun Media

MONTREAL -- Frustrated by her meagre salary, a Montreal math teacher took advantage of school holidays to work -- as an escort.

Using the pseudonym Dawn, the 29-year-old, who recently retired from teaching, sold her sexual services by night and taught high school math by day.

For four years, Dawn divided her time between the classroom and hotel rooms, without her colleagues' knowledge.

The woman told Sun Media that her teacher's salary wasn't enough. A first-year teacher earns $35,000 a year, but will end up with around $24,000 after taxes.

This is very funny. This is also why I always tell my kids that UNITS ARE VERY IMPORTANT. Enjoy.