There were simple and complex paths to follow with markers. We worked on putting dinos in the right order to make a number line. Our colored stegosaurus lost their spikes, so we used colored clothespins to clip on their backs. Our dinosaurs also needed nests in their eggs, so we used playdough to make the right number of eggs in the nest. We used pattern blocks to make dinosaur shapes and followed dino pattern strips. One of the favorite games was colored plastic dinosaur eggs that we had to match the same felt colored egg yolks. When you matched them, you opened up the egg and put the yolk inside. A game at the teacher table was rolling a dice and adding baby plastic dinos. The next day, we filled up the card with dinos and took them away. We became Paleontologists in the sand table using small scoops, sifters, and brushes to find dinosaur bones and fossils. We dressed up like dinosaurs with funny dino hats, feet made out of craft foam, and puppets. There was a lot of roaring and growling going on! We got to use these great dinosaur hand grabbers to pick up more dino eggs out of their nests (shredded packing paper).
Hiding under the paper below are rubbing plates. We watched dinosaurs appear as we used crayons to rub on top of the paper. Kids were loving the dot-to-dot dino pages. They felt like big kids! We matched real objects into the "fossil" stones by matching the imprints. There were dinosaur bones in a big tub to put together to make skeletons. Did you see our dinosaur bone bracelets come home? The kids tried very hard to make patterns. Lacing, dot paints, and sorting dinosaurs mats. We had a dinosaur lotto game that had different pictures of our dinosaur vocabulary words on it (museum, paleontologist, fossil, jungle, etc.). We had giant triceratops on the floor with cone horns for ring toss. We called it the Triceratops Toss!
Circle time featured tons of songs, movement games, and activities. We used giant foot prints for a listening and number concept game, doggy bones to weigh, and dinosaur pictures for descriptive words and opposites. See the giant dino footprints? Teachers helped us trace our feet, then we cut the footprints out and taped them to the giant dino prints. Before we did that, each child estimated how many kid prints would go into the dino print. We played a sleeping dinosaur game, that when they woke up, they had to do a given movement (jumping, clapping, spinning, etc.). A fun craft was dino egg paper marbling. We spread shaving cream on a tray, added food color drops, swirled the color around, pressed a giant egg shape on top of the swirls, and then used a spatula to scrape off the shaving cream. What was left was a cool print on our egg! Wait until you see the surprise inside our egg when they come home!
