Are you teaching a dinosaur theme in your preschool classroom or homeschool? Keep reading for the most skill building Dynamite Dinos preschool activities around!
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DYNAMITE DINOS PRESCHOOL ACTIVITIES
One of the most captivating themes to teach (whether you’re homeschooling or teaching in a preschool or kindergarten classroom) is Dynamite Dinos. Little ones are fascinated when learning about and participating in activities about different dinosaurs!
They love to learn about their favorite dinos, whether that’s T-Rex, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, or a different kind, and all of this exploration leads to interactive STEM play! So get ready to go back in time to build new skills!
Keep reading for over 20 dinosaur activities for your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten students. These ideas include literacy, math, fine and gross motor skills, and more. Grab your printables for math & literacy here. Oh, and there’s a freebie, too!
If you want a copy of my early themes (including an editable version where you can type in your own themes), check out this freebie. (*Please note: You will need to download this file to your computer and then open it with Adobe in order to add your own themes. You cannot add your themes from your web browser.)
DYNAMITE DINOS ACTIVITIES: LITERACY
Before you get started with your Dynamite Dinos theme, make sure you have your books all ready to go! You can check out our favorite books for this theme in this post. There are over 50 books for you to choose from! Make sure to request these from your local library (or order them from Amazon) a few weeks before you start your theme.
You’re definitely going to want to start your Dynamite Dinos theme with these vocabulary cards! Do your littles know the difference between a Tyrannosaurus Rex and an Allosaurus? How about a Triceratops and a Stegosaurus? These cards are the perfect way to introduce your little learners to the 15 dinosaur-related words they’ll be learning about over the course of the unit. You can use these vocabulary cards in your writing center, as a Write the Room activity, or as a picture match.
For Write the Room or Color the Room activities, you can hide the dinosaur vocabulary word cards around the room for your little ones to find. (You could also hide them in a sensory bin as an option). Have your little one match the card to the picture on the activity page. They can choose to write the word on the correct line, color the matching picture, or simply circle the picture that is a match.
For this activity, your little one will dig up letter or word cards that have an emphasis on the letters S, A, T, I, P, N, and C. Have them choose a card and sort it by “letter” or “word.” If it’s a letter, have them tell you the name and sound. If it’s a word, have them try to read it. All of the words are decodable, so your little one can feel successful and proud of their reading skills!
Rhyming is a fun way to help your child hear and manipulate the sounds in words (which is called phonological awareness). Taking turns with the spinner, have your little ones try to come up with two words that rhyme with the picture they landed on. You may have to help with this depending on ability. For a challenge, ask them to spell each word they come up with! Fill in the boxes above the picture to see which one wins!
There are many ways to sort dinosaurs, but in this activity, it will be by what they eat. After talking with your little ones about the difference between a carnivore and an herbivore (hint: it’s all about the teeth), have them try to sort the dinosaur vocabulary cards and place them on the correct mat.
The dinosaur and skeleton cards in this activity can be used to play a memory game. Your little one will choose two cards that are face down to try to get a match. Have them say the letter on the card and its sound. Can they tell you another word that starts with that sound? Or can they tell you how many syllables are in the dinosaur’s name? Clapping or stomping each syllable (just like a dinosaur!) can help with this!
Activities that include an imagination component are so engaging for little ones! Pretending to be a paleontologist, they will dig in sand for these letters, then hole punch all of the matching letters around the outside of the card (we like these hole punchers). Can they put the letters in ABC order?
Afterwards, have them use the same sand to practice handwriting! Have them start by writing straight or curvy lines with their fingers, paintbrush, a Q tip(pretending it is a bone), or even the tail of a toy dinosaur. Then, they can make different letters in the sand. For each letter they make, have them tell you the name and sound for that letter (and maybe even a dinosaur that starts with that sound!)
Play dough is so great to help develop the strength in little ones’ hands. For this activity, your little one will create the dinosaur on the card, and then try to match that card with a dinosaur vocabulary card. Are they able to put the dinosaur names in ABC order? Can they tell you any facts about the dinosaur?
DYNAMITE DINOS ACTIVITIES: MATH
After explaining what paleontologists are and what they do, your little one will take on the role of a paleontologist and dig for bones in a sensory bin of sand or dirt. After finding the bones, they will order them from biggest to smallest. How many bones did they find? If they are able, they can measure them with a ruler or tape measure and write the number on the card. Which one is the biggest? Maybe it came from a T-Rex!
My 7 year old daughter was so excited to create this activity for our Dynamite Dinos pack! Your little one can pick dinosaur/number cards and line them up according to the size of the dinosaur picture (which will also put them in numerical order…either counting by 2s, 5s, or 10s). For more advanced little ones, they can pick cards and decide which number is smaller or bigger and arrange them in that order. Then, they can practice skip counting by doing a dinosaur stomp for each number!
Little ones are probably familiar with more common shapes, but do they know what a rhombus looks like? How about a trapezoid?! After reviewing what different 2D shapes are called and what they look like, your little one will dig up the 2D-shaped dinosaurs from a sensory bin and place them on the museum pedestal with the same name. Then they can do a museum walk and admire all of their hard work!
This activity has two mats depending on the set of numbers you want to work on with your little one (1-10 is the carnivore and 11-20 is the herbivore). They will choose a number card and place it on the mat. Then, they will feed the dinosaur with that many manipulatives (such as beans or legos). Or for a challenge, they can pick two cards between 1-10, add them together, and feed that many manipulatives to the herbivore.
This game will help your little one practice counting and number recognition. They will choose a dinosaur, name the number, and match that dinosaur to the correct ten frame. Hiding the number cards in a sensory bin or around the room makes it even more fun! As always, have them tell you what the number is as they find the match.
Similar to the previous activity, little ones will match tally mark bones with the correct ten frame. If you want to, you can mismatch the tally bones with the ten frame and ask your little one to fix them. They love to show how smart they are!
For this activity, your little one will roll a fossil print cube. Then they will count the fossil prints on the cube and match it to the mat. Have them color in a circle above the matching fossil prints. Which fossil print will be the winner? You could even ask them at the start of the activity to guess which one they think might win!
This activity has your little one working on beginning addition problems that add up to 5. Looking at the dinosaur card, they will count the dinosaurs and tell you how many more are needed to make 5. If they are ready, they can write the addition problem on the line.
These FREE Number Cards can be used for all sorts of counting activities with dinosaur exploration. They can be used to count herbivores vs carnivores or the armored plates on a stegosaurus. Have your little one tell you what they want to count; anything works to reinforce number learning! They can even be used to make addition problems for them to solve.
This activity (along with all of our freebies!) can be downloaded from the Free Activity Library. If you’re already a member of our email community, you can click HERE to head to the Free Activity Library, enter your password (it’s on your most current email from me), and download your copy!
If you’d like to join our email community & receive the password as my way of saying THANK YOU for joining, you can click HERE to subscribe. Once you enter your information, the password will be emailed to you within minutes.
DYNAMITE DINOS: HANDS-ON ACTIVITIES AND SNACKS
Hands-on activities are always a lot of fun for little ones! This activity requires you to make salt dough dinosaur bones of different sizes (or you could make dinosaur eggs or dinosaurs themselves!) Hide the items you made in a bin filled with sand, and have your little one become a paleontologist and uncover them using a paintbrush. How many can they find?!
This is another hands-on activity that inspires creativity in your little ones. Provide dinosaurs and dinosaur-related items in a bin filled with kinetic sand, and let their imaginations go wild!
This is another activity that requires advanced preparation. Using baking soda and colored water, you will make and freeze “dinosaur eggs” with a small dinosaur inside. Your little one will get to add vinegar to “hatch” the eggs and discover the dinosaur inside. They will definitely get excited when they see the foam from the dissolving egg!
Because the dinosaurs from the egg hatching activity are covered in baking soda and vinegar, provide your little ones with a bin of soapy water and let them give them a bath. It’s so much fun to play in water!
Let your little one go on a fossil hunt using a magnifying glass. What will they find? Be sure to have a variety of objects hiden that they can discover!
Pretending to be a paleontologist definitely works up an appetite, so your little one will be ready for a snack! Food creations are so much fun and so delicious to make (not to mention they help with fine motor skill development!) This stegosaurus is made from waffle sections and different pieces of fruit. Enjoy!
DYNAMITE DINOS PRESCHOOL & PRE-K FUN
I hope these ideas helped you fill-in your Dynamite Dinos lesson plans for your preschool classroom or homeschool! All of the printables for this unit can be found in my Dynamite Dinos Preschool Activity Pack.
What types of dinosaur preschool activities do you plan for your littles? Do you have any fun activities that would be great to add to this list? Comment below or find me on Instagram [@littleslovelearningblog] and let me know!
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Happy Learning!
