Dinosaur Digs and more....

Dinosaurs have often been an exciting topic to learn about, yet controversial for some. Not everyone has the same views as to the definitive existence of these great creatures, but what a wonderful opportunity to explore these animals in all their greatness.  
This topic is for the believers as well as the non believers.  It opens doors and thought provoking conversations with your little ones.  
Enjoy seeing what 3 days of learning looks like in a preschool of 9 little ones.

At the first opportunity of clear weather; outdoors, here we come.

 We explored in our mud kitchen, which was renamed; the Dinosaur Dig.

 A prehistoric bat was found and fed, gulp...., MUD! LOL

 Setting a dinosaur trap.

 Digging beneath our Camellia flowers.

 

  His face says it all, "by golly, I've struck gold!" Actually just a huge lump of mud!

Group activities are important to a healthy opportunity for social connectivity:

Coloring a brachiosaurus in his habitat.

Here are some quotes from listening to the kiddos talk:

Question: Is he a meat eater?  
No, he eats the leaves on the tall trees.

Question: Am I bigger than he is?  
No, he can sit on you and squish you. 

Question: Do you think he's a nice dinosaur?  
Yea, he can be our friend and protect us from the big mean dinosaurs.

Comment: The T-Rex has BIG SHARP TEETH that can BITE YOU!

 Here's the final poster size painting they did as a group.  It's 2' X 4'.

I always include some type of fun educational worksheets, along with crafts, reading, music and discussions.  Hands on learning happens as well to connect all they have learned.  These next few are the worksheets.

Here is one of our dinosaur crafts.
Working together at the table was so much fun listening to their discussions and plans for play afterwards.  It was all about Dinosaur Digs.

Craft #2
Noodle Dinosaurs

Squeezing glue onto the lines then gluing any noodles you want provide learning as well.  It also develops fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. 

 

Craft #3
Stegosaurus

See the spikes on the tail?  Yea Miss Patty, they are to poke you with if you try to hurt it!

Wow, they listen when we discussed the purpose of the plates along the back and it's spiky tail.

Hatching Dinosaurs.

Well we cheated, for immediate gratification.  We broke open our eggs and then we placed them in water.  Otherwise, we would have had to wait a few days for them to hatch.  

This was truly a hands-on fun project.

Here are some good books we read.  There were 3 other ones too, 

but they went home with one of our kiddos.  

I laminated some dinosaur pictures to use as 

vocabulary words and put them on a book ring.

 

  That about wraps up our Dinosaur Digs week.  As I mentioned, we only had 3 days together so we could only get in so much learning with all our fun.  There's just never enough days in a week LOL.

Dinosaur Digs Bulletin Board

  Have a great day everyone, until next week where we explore our unit on the 

5 Senses

♥ PattyKakesKidz ♥