Mary Anning

Alexandra will be taking a class about dinosaurs at our museum in a few weeks. This week, we've read 3 books about Mary Anning.

• Mary Anning: Fossil Hunter by Sally M. Walker - This is my favorite of the three, and I think it is the most complete.
• The Dog That Dug for Dinosaurs: A True Story by Redmond - This book is about Mary's dog and how he helped her search for fossils.
• Rare Treasure: Mary Anning and Her Remarkable Discoveries by Don Brown - another nice book.
• Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon by Atkins - I didn't enjoy this one as much, but maybe it is just because we'd already read the other 3 and it was, of course, pretty much the same story

This photo is of Alexandra and Nana doing a "fossil dig" last September. We've spent quite a few hours digging our dinosaur skeleton out, and still haven't completed it. I think we'll have to get it back out & work on it some more. We'll play we are Mary Anning & her assistant!

Updated 9/20/06 - Yesterday, we took this "fossil dig" outside. It was a beautiful day and it reminded me to be thankful we homeschool! Anyway, we worked more on digging out this fossil. I'm amazed at how little we've done in so much time. But, we read Mary Anning only uncovered about half the size of her hand every day!!! That would take a lot of time and patience! But, I can also see how exciting it is I had a VERY hard time quitting and I wanted to keep digging and see what we'd find next!

I guess I got a little pick-happy and I broke off one foot and one toe. So, I told Alexandra I should just stick to the bristle brush & let her do the picking! (But, I really have so much fun with the pick...)