Do your children love dinosaurs?
Whether it be the size, the physical characteristics, the skill or power the dinosaurs have or simply the fact that it does not exist anymore – children are fascinated with them.
Read to them Dino-Pets by Lynn Plourde as an introduction to different kinds of dinosaur.
Bring out your toy dinosaurs and see if your children can recognize them.
Sort the toys by size or colour and count them together.
After being familiar to most of the dinosaurs you have in the class, then ready them for a Dino Hunt!
Hide dinosaur toys around the classroom or out in the playground.
Teach them the Dinosaur Song so they can sing it while going around looking for dinos.
An indoor Dino hunt can also be a great sensory activity.
Dinosaur Fossil
First, you need a dough – a fossil dough.
This is a simple, no cook recipe and all you need are:
- 1 cup flour
- ½ cup salt
- 1 cup used coffee grounds
- 1 cup of black coffee (liquid, cold)
Children love this dough because it allows their toy dinosaurs to leave imprints. I love this dough because it smells really good.
So gather all your ingredients and simple mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl.
Add the cold, liquid coffee slowly until the mixture comes together. The children can enjoy doing this for quite some time. Just let them at it.
Knead the mixture – ask your children to help out.
This recipe does not air dry well so don’t worry if it does not because it really won’t.
Now grab your children’s toy dinosaurs (the plastic ones) and let the children make dinosaur footprints or cover the toys with the dough.
Don’t worry if their hands get a little dirty… they can always wash up.
Or you can hide the dinosaurs in the fossil dough and let the children play anthropologist in a dino excavation!
Getting her first fossil to uncover the dinosaur from our sensory tub!
Children looked for different materials to “dig and break” the fossil carefully –“might hurt the dinosaur.”
Patiently uncovering hidden dinos.
Tada! A yellow dinosaur!
Children just love this activity because it feels like there is a surprise dinosaur hidden in each fossil dough.
This activity made the children use their hands to knead and mold the dough which is good for their fine motor.
They were also encouraged to think how to cover or uncover the dinosaurs. They thought of different materials they can use for the task which is a great problem solving exercise!
Plus, plus, plus they enjoyed talking about their favourite dinosaurs and mimicking them. They also strategise on how to best finish the task.
Now that’s a lot of skill done in one day – and they had fun doing it.
We have lots of other dinosaur activities to share with you, so come back for more next time or keep browsing!
Happy teaching!
Special thanks to Delightful Children’s Books for the main image.
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