I have two children which even though are similar in age, are completely different when it comes to their areas of interest. My daughter who is in her teens is interested in fashion, guys, and dates. But her primary hobby is talking on the phone; she is doing it all the time. My son is ten years old and all he cares about are toys and things that crawl, smell and make funny noises. Not to mention that his favourite activity is trying to make my daughter's life a living hell.
This is why I got very surprised when one day both of them said they wanted to make a class project with pictures of dinosaurs. I could have expected such an idea popping up in my son's head, but I was surprised that my daughter's art class was concentrating on dinosaurs. My son found the idea of working together with his sister trying to discover pictures of dinosaurs brilliant, but she didn't even want to hear about it. She highly disliked this project and she had no intention of making things worse by doing research about dinosaurs with her younger brother.
I thought it would be funny and easy to help my children with their projects. After all, how hard could it be to find some pictures of dinosaurs? The interest in them has been huge since the motion pictures invaded our lives. Then I began researching and I was faced up to a great difficulty. There were way too many sources to sift through. There are pictures of dinosaurs suitable for classes, others in clip art and there were also such pictures including a multitude of facts - some showing fun facts, others deep analysis of the life and demise of dinosaurs.
When I went through the information with my son he was eager to include it all in his project, though the information was far too much. However, on the contrary, my daughter disliked all the pictures and wanted to use the first one she saw, even though she thought it was stupid, because she just wanted to have her project done. Then we tried searching for pictures in the arts area and we found some which were breathtaking.
Many artists have managed to capture the beauty of the dinosaurs, as well as the magic of their surroundings. We even came across pictures in water colors and in oils. My daughter especially liked the pictures of life size sculptures of dinosaurs. Working with me, both my children were able to make wonderful school projects. What's most amazing is how different each project was, though they shared the same topic.