Appreciate a Dragon Day 2014

Back in 2004,

author Donita K. Paul

created 

Appreciate a Dragon Day

in honor of the release of her book

Dragonspell.

When our family heard about this special day

at the beginning of January,

you better believe we were on board

with a mini-celebration!

We all love fantasy literature and movies,

but my eldest,

Jungle Girl,

takes that love to a whole other level.

She is in LOVE with dragons-

especially

Toothless from the

How to Train Your Dragon

franchise.

Here is a sample of her Toothless collection

that we used to decorate

for the special day.

(I LOVE it!)

***

To begin our special day,

we decorated the place with

Jungle Girl's dragon collection...

Then our buddies arrived from our

Lemonhead Homeschooling Group,

and we were ready to celebrate!

First,

we crafted up some cute

Chinese Dragon puppets.

(Found at Kids Soup)

Then it was snack time!

On the menu was...

...Dragon Claws

(aka Frito Corn Chips)

and the dangerously delicious...

...Dragon Crunch!

I used a recipe similar to THIS one

to make the Dragon Crunch,

except I used white chocolate baking squares

instead of white chocolate chips

and Schar's Gluten-Free Chocolate O's

(our homeschooling buddies are allergic to gluten).

I also added green food coloring to the white chocolate

to give it a more "dragon-ish" appearance.

While the kiddos ate,

I read aloud...

...Eric Carle's

Dragons Dragons & Other Creatures That Never Were.

This book was highly entertaining,

especially for the older kiddos,

since they have an appreciation

for all mythical creatures.

I mean, come on, he has a picture

of a Hippogryph in the book-

who WOULDN'T love that?

:0)

Next I had the older girls

go outside...

...and hide some dragon eggs.

The littles enjoyed the hunt,

albeit rather chilly...

Sadly,

there were no baby dragons in our eggs...

 ...just Tootsie Rolls...

...but I think they were OK with that!

Finally,

the older kiddos ended the day

*trying*

to put together...

...this dragon craft kit.

So far,

only the head is completely assembled.

I do NOT recommend this kit

if you get frustrated easily.

The directions are not the best,

but I am confident that in a couple more sittings

we will have this thing put together

and ready to decorate.

Puzzles are good for the mind,

right?

Every kiddo also left with

their own...

...Dragon Hunter Kit,

which I am certain they will put

to good use.

All in all,

I do believe we showered the dragon

with love much today.

We are now looking forward to

Appreciate a Dragon Day

2015!