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Preschool Dinosaur Unit
Hi! This is Future Ticia 2020 telling you all about our preschool dinosaur unit. This also functioned as a kindergarten dinosaur unit since my daughter was in preschool and my boys were in kindergarten. That means some of our projects are going to be hard for younger preschool kids, and some of the projects are going to be way too easy for your kindergarten kid. Homeschooling preschool is always an adventure.
To put together this preschool dinosaur unit, I’m collapsing a few posts together, because I’ve got all sorts of things, and they aren’t really up to a whole post…. Maybe, I might keep them separate we’ll see.
For those of you following along for a kindergarten dinosaur unit, this was to go with the letter D as part of the My Father’s World Kindergarten.
(There are affiliate links in here)
Kindergarten Dinosaur Unit: READING
We continued to work on blending. I’ve been using two sets of the Fridge Magnet, and every now and then get tempted to buy the lowercase letters set. But then I remember, I have felt board letters, and wooden letters to go with our See and Spell puzzle, and then there are the letters I cut out and laminated from a workbook. So, I realize I really don’t need to buy more letters. That would be a want.
I’ve been alternating with having them form the words out of the letters I give them, and I form the words and they read (in reality guess, but it’s progress because the guesses get better).
- The Ugly Dinosaur book and activity
- Dinosaur book list– which I’m going to write brand new, because the old post is worthless…
5 Crazy Dinosaurs poem
We read the poem 5 crazy dinosaurs from [website that no longer exists, and I’m glad I copied the poem/song we used]:
5 crazy Dinosaurs sweeping the floor
1 got swept away, then there were four
4 crazy Dinosaurs chased by a bee,
1 got stung, then there were 3
3 crazy Dinosaurs playing with glue,
1 got stuck, then there were 2
2 crazy Dinosaurs out for a run
1 fell down, then there was 1
1 crazy Dinosaur acting like a hero
He went out to save the others, then there were zero
I’ve got this all put together as a cute and fun printable over in my Subscriber Library you get instant access to once you’ve subscribed to my newsletter.
Ideas to go with this poem:
- find all of the numbers and number words
- look for letters
- find the rhyming words
- act it out (we used the dinosaur felt set and my homemade felt board for this, and each kid got to take turns taking a dinosaur off, I had to assign who got to be the last dinosaur because they all wanted to be the hero). In the printable, you’ll see 5 dinosaurs at the bottom that can be used for acting it out or you could use toys. Of course, kids are always a big fan of acting out themselves.
Dinosaur MATH
We used these flannel dinosaurs a lot this week. It made for great visual math problems. Counting the dinosaurs, comparing which group had more, are there more plant-eaters or more meat-eaters? Comparing size of the dinosaurs. In the printable, I’ve included 10 dinosaurs you can sort, count, and do comparisons with. Of course, if you have dinosaur toys that make an even better way to do this.
You can also take the 5 Crazy Dinosaurs poem and turn it into a series of subtraction problems, this is great for introducing the concept of written math problems to your kindergartener (see this 5 little pumpkins post)
Preschool dinosaur unit: SCIENCE
There are two elements of the science lesson in our preschool dinosaur unit. First is play with toys.
Again, pulling out that dinosaur felt set (I didn’t take another picture because it pretty much looks like that math picture). We sorted the animals into types of dinosaurs. We found meat eaters and plant eaters. We found large dinosaurs and small dinosaurs. It’s a whole smorgasbord of sorting, which is a good beginning science and math skill.
But, their favorite part of this whole thing was our dinosaur dig. Now, we have done many different variations of this over the years as we’ve studied dinosaurs, some of these were aimed for older elementary kids, and some were just let’s have fun:
But this time, we went on a field trip to the Austin Science and Nature Center and went through their dinosaur dig. If you aren’t blessed to have a park with their own dinosaur dig, you could replicate this for your kids by burying dinosaur toys in the sandbox at the park (or the beach volleyball pit).
We also compared the size of dinosaur bones to our bones. Notice this dinosaur’s ribcage is bigger than my kids. They get a huge kick out of this every time we go.
After digging up dinosaurs we went over and checked out the various animals they are trying to rehabilitate here. Most of the animals on exhibit are not able to go back into the wild because of an injury, or they’ve been too humanized (not the right word, but it’s what I’m thinking of now).
We then had to check out the birds and it’s always fun to look for the birds in their cages because they’re good at hiding.
As a side note, for those of you who do believe in evolution, you could use this as a chance to draw similarities and see if you can see an evolutionary path, for those who believe in Creationism this is a great chance to talk about how God created such a wonderful world where so many things are interconnected.
And we end the trip by wading in the water and getting the worst of the dirt off.
Overall, this was a very fun way to talk about dinosaur scientists. A great book to go with this field trip is Aliki’s Digging Up Dinosaurs. It’s a little on the high end for pre-schoolers, but it has all the stuff they’re interested in.
Other resources I used over 10 years ago for this dinosaur unit
Most of these links are going to be more appropriate for a preschool dinosaur unit versus a kindergarten dinosaur unit.
- Orange Juice dinosaur unit– This is geared for a younger preschooler
- Confessions of a Homeschooler preschool unit– very much preschool
- 1+1+1=1 Dinosaur lapbook– this is more kindergarten, and maybe even elementary school
- dinosaur sensory bin– definitely more preschool
- dinosaur craft– handprint craft!
- Coffee fossil prints– this would be great for a kindergartener
A general look at our LIFE
Going from top left clockwise.
We made cookies because we saw them in a story. And yes she is licking the beater. I know it’s not good for you, but I did it as a kid and survived just fine. (Yes, this is called rationalization).
This was Uncle Sean’s shirt as a boy. Uncle Sean wore it all the time during the summer, and he had a black hairnet and pretend glasses that he would put on when he was pretending to be Clark Kent. As you can see I come by my packrat tendencies honestly because this has been in my Mom’s house for 20 years…..
This isn’t really any skill, I just have a funny story. So, next to my computer is the printer/fax/scanner machine we have. The fax portion is just annoying because it has a phone and the kids love to come up pick up the phone and yell as loud as they can, “Hello, hello?” Then not really hang it up, and runoff. It gets really old.
The silly boy fell asleep right under my feet, while I watched SYTYCD with a friend. He slept through the entire show, and his brother climbed over him to get into my lap.
Oh, and we went to the Renaissance Festival here in Texas. To read more about that, and how much I LOVE it, follow the link.
I hope everyone else had fun weeks. It’s amazing to me each week, how I start off thinking we didn’t really do all that much, and then I sit down and see all we’ve done.
Comments
8 responses to “Preschool Dinosaur Unit”
Hey I let Selena lick the beater as well. That is the fun of making cookies isn't it?
Love the phone in one hand and a sucker in the other!
A lot of great activities this week.
Oh I am so jealous! We loved going to the Renaissance Festival. That is where I always buy my candles, too. Legendary Candles (Designs in Wax) are the best! You look great all dressed up! Hope you had a great time. Huzzah!
Goodness, I'm just happy when Matthew IS wearing underwear, lol! This is a great post, I'm saving so much of the dinosaur stuff, thanks for the awesome links!
I don't know what the renn faire has to do with dinos but i'll go along w it. 🙂
PS I got something in the mail today. THANK YOU! Very cute! The problem is Z has claimed it for his own. HA! He put his cars in it. silly boy. Thank you again!Your dino stuff rocks! We LOVE dinos, all of us:-)!
I LOVE your pics from the Renaissance Festival too, the post was also so fun to read. I've never been to anything like that.
Also, love your dino books. I've read some, but thanks for giving some new dino books as well.
You always have great weeks with lots of fun!
Great dino activities!! We have a renaissance festival in our area too, I remember going when I was little. Thanks for reminding me :0)
It looks like you had a great week. I agree with Debbie – batter is almost the best part of making cookie 🙂
I like you rationalization ~ it works for me!! {and our kids too!}
Love the dinosaur sorting by what they eat! 🙂
And I love that I can always giggle about your kids when I come to visit too!! too cute they are!
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