Our second last theme for the year was Dinosaurs this week! The kids loved it, and the teacher learned a thing or two about dinosaurs too!
Crafts
Handprint crafts are always cute, and a great keepsake too!
The kids used a template to draw the egg. Then they painted it using the marbling effect: egg page in a box and roll marbles that were dipped into paint around in the box. Great fun and great effect!
These pictures were traced from dino pictures in a colouring book. The aim was to teach them the different names of the different dinosaurs and also the different parts of a dinosaur’s body, and how it differs from dino type to dino type. Eg. long neck to reach tree leaves(Diplodocus), short legs to eat from grass(Triceratops), sharp teeth to kill prey(Tyranosaurus) etc.
Sensory Play
And what would a dinosaur theme be without a dino small world? We first played with beans and tweezers, manipulating those and beans are tricky(great for fine motor development). Then we added the play dinos to the beans. The children had to bring 5 rocks from home(which we used to do some counting activities first), and then we build a small dino world, together with sand and leaves. Lastly I added the “fossils”(dino impressions in salt dough), and they had to find it, using the paint brushes, and see which dinosaur fits where. The kids had a blast!
Other Activities
The plastic dinosaurs in the playdough was fun too: making imprints and creating small worlds there too.
Some other fun activities included: 1) linking plastic ear rings, and categorize them, seeing which is the most/least/same amount by making a long string,
2) Playing with DIY car tracks(I made these from black cardboard and tipex stripes) and blocks: building ramps and roads
3) Baking “dino bones” using bread dough- yummy!
And lastly, there were a challenge on building dinosaurs out of boxes. The other classes made it a class project: building one big dinosaur out of boxes and decorate it accordingly(photos to follow), but I let my 5 year olds use their creativity and create their own. Some of the box dinosaurs:
Another fun-filled learning week! Please do find our past themes here!
[…] Dinosaur Theme Bird Seed Oats Money Theme Coloured Rice Spring Theme Quick Setup Corn Cloud Dough Water Ice cream Goo Rice Bin Yarn Bin Under the Sea Theme Ocean Theme with Waterbeads Chow mein Noodles Wood Shavings Setting up a sensory bin does not have to cost much, and it usually does not to take forever to set up. The nice thing is: it will entertain your child for quite some time. Just keep an eye on them, it might get messy! […]