Preschool - Dinosaurs

Day 1:  Dinosaurs!


Today was kind of just an intro to dinosaurs.  We looked through the book My Big Dinosaur World.

This wasn't my first choice of dinosaur overview book, but it was all the library had.  We looked through it at the pictures and did our best to say all the crazy names.

Then we read a few of the poems from Dinothesaurus.  We're going to use it all week.

The poems are fun and teach facts at the same time.  Like, "Stegasaurus, Herbivorous, Dined on plants inside the forest."  And cute pictures too, like the T-rex listening to an iPod.

Then we read Dinosaur Roar, which is really similar to Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs (which is one of our favorites, but it's in storage).

We also read Danny and the Dinosaur.

I know we'll be reading this one again.  He really liked it.

Then it was art time!  I got a couple of how to draw dinosaur books and we drew our favorite dinosaurs!  I won't link to the books we had since they weren't the best, but libraries usually have a ton of them, though they are usually not at the preschool level.  Luckily I found an easier one.

He did pretty good!

Then we needed some movement, so we put on this YouTube video of Walk the Dinosaur and rocked out!  Again, he was a bit timid to dance and be crazy, but he loosened up.

Then to calm him down again I gave him this dinosaur maze.  The only problem with it is there is only one way through the maze with no options to go any other directions.  So if your kid isn't used to doing mazes, this is a good starter, I guess.  But Alex was less than impressed with it.  Oh well.

The last activity I was going to do was to cut out dinosaur footprint shapes and tie them to his feet and then have him step in water and make footprints outside on the ground.  But it's raining, so no footprints today!


Day 2:  Paleontologists and Fossils


Today we talked about how we know about dinosaurs and how people find them.  We read the books Digging Up Dinosaurs and Dinosaur Dig.

Then a couple more poems from Dinothesaraus.  And then we read Monster Bones.

That was a pretty fun, entertaining book.

Then it was time to make dino fossils!  We got some plaster of Paris from the craft store.  Then we found different items/toys that we wanted to make fossils out of and made little mounds of playdoh/clay to press them into.

Then we made a little paper wall on each one to pour the plaster of Paris into.

Make sure you mix the plaster in something you can throw away and don't wash it down the sink!  We used a plastic cup.

We let them sit for about and hour or so??  Then we peeled off the paper and pulled back the playdoh to reveal our fossils!  Just so you know, homemade playdoh peeled off much better than store bought.  There were still bits of playdoh stick in the fossils, so we gave Alex a toothpick to get them out.

He didn't finish them all, but he definitely had fun doing this!  Here's the final fossils:

A few race cars, a dinosaur, a fireman, and a dolphin.  This was lots of fun!


Day 3:  Dinosaurs are Different


We started today by looking through My Big Dinosaur World from day one.  We talked about the difference between meat-eating dinosaurs and plant-eating dinosaurs.  To demonstrate how the plant eaters' teeth worked, we got a baggie and put some small rocks and leaves in it then rubbed it between our hands.  This broke up the leaves the same way the dino teeth would have.

We talked about their different sizes and different body features, like claws, clubs, scales, plates, spikes, etc., and what they are all used for.

Then we read Dinosaurs are Different.

This was WAY over his head, and kind of over mine too.  Way too technical and way too many impossible to pronounce classes of dinosaurs.  Oh well.

Then we hopped on the computer and played the dinosaur hunter game found here.  It's a puzzle putting together dino bones.  There are three different levels.  Alex started with level one and ended up doing all three levels.  He would have played on the website longer, but I made him get off so we could finish school.

We read How Big Were The Dinosaurs.

Alex really liked this one too.  It was a good visual of how big all the different dinos were.

At the back of the book it has a list of all the different dinosaurs and how long they were, so we grabbed a tape measure and some chalk and headed outside.  We picked a point on the sidewalk and measured from there for a few different kinds of dinosaurs.  We marked their length with chalk and wrote their names.  It was surprising how small some were, like stegasaurus, and how big others were, like seismasaurus.  Alex really liked doing this too.

And that ends our dino week!