Hatching A Dinosaur Egg

It appears penguins have taken...well...a bit of a backseat, since our visit to the Dinosaur puppet show the other day (which incidentally was amazingly good!).

Part of this is due to the painstakingly drawn-out excitement of hatching our very own dinosaur egg.

Please enjoy the following pictorial examination of the process:

Emerging the egg in water

(Note that the instructions then said to wait 12-24 hours for it to fully hatch.  With a 2 year old constantly hanging over it, asking "Is it hatching yet???")

The first crack appears (approximately 28 hours later)

It was at this point that the egg received the first of what can only be termed "invasive birth intervention" by the aforementioned 2 year old impatient dinosaur obstetrician:

Shortly thereafter:

One baby Muttaburrasaurus, a uniquely Australian dinosaur - although since Australia was nowhere near where it is today at the time when this lovely little vegetarian roamed the earth, perhaps our claim to him is a bit on the idealistic side.  Either way, he is a bit cute, and I'm happy he's ours.

Here was Muttaburrasaurus today, playing in some snow with his other dinosaur friends Stegosaurus, Velociraptor (don't ask), Spinosaurus and Baby Triceratops:

Note also at this point that the instructions required baby Muttaburra to stay submerged in his water bath for SEVEN DAYS to reach his full size. 

Niamh enjoyed the process so much - and the puppet show - that her daddy is taking her back tomorrow to see it all over again.  She has already announced her intentions to return with a blue egg this time...oh, and a green one...and the other egg the colour of which she has forgotten...

I love her new interest in dinosaurs.  And what a lovely unschooling week we've had, learning all about them!

If you'd like to learn more about Muttaburrasaurus, you can find out all about it HERE .