Dino Diggers

Is there any match as perfect as toddlers and dinosaurs? They go together like peanut butter and jelly! This would explain the huge sign-up I had for last week's Dino Digger's program, for ages 2-5.

We started off the program with a story-- just one. It was hard to choose which I wanted to read. Because I was only doing one, I kind of wanted a true story book, but I wanted it to be short and easy enough so that even the youngest kids in the group would get something out of it. There are a lot of great dinosaur books, but I wound up picking Roar by Todd H. Doodler, which I'd used (with success) for pre-school visits some years ago. I think everyone enjoyed it, although I'm not sure if they enjoyed it more than they would have enjoyed, say, Dinosaur Vs. Bedtime, How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?, The Super Hungry Dinosaur, or Dini Dinosaur. There are a few good class-roaring opportunities throughout Roar, so it's got that really big perk going for it. (Nevermind the fact that I had a sweet boy afraid of loud noises. Details, details.)

After the book, I opened the room up for a sort of "free play." I had several different activities available and about 30-minutes for children and caregivers to make their way around the room to try it all out.

There were:

-- Two sand bins with sifters and dinosaur skeletons buried for the kids to dig around in *

-- Several dinosaur puzzles

-- A volcano picture made by blowing watered down paint through a straw **

-- A trace-a-dino-footprint worksheet ***

-- Dino eggs to inspect and match up with their corresponding pictures ****

* The sand bins and the dinosaur skeletons are things we own and have on hand. We don't use them very often but when we do, they are always, always, always a big hit. It was time to break them out again and, as usual, they were awesome.

** I got the idea for this craft from Pinterest-- specifically, it came from OurLittleAcorns.com. I had pre-cut volcanoes (although my coworker commented that they looked like poops), watered down red and orange paint with straws for blowing, and these puffy dinosaur stickers, which were cool, though smaller than I'd anticipated. This craft was fun, but way too hard for the younger crew. In fact, I tried it at home with Sadie (who's 2½) and she liked doing it in theory, but was kind of clueless and not really strong enough, physically, to blow the paint around through the straw. The stickers though, now those were easy and fun for her. On the other hand, the 4ish-year-olds in the class had great success with blowing the paint!

*** The trace a dino footprint worksheets can be found here, on PagingSuperMom.com. I printed a stack and a few kids did them. I also took one home for Sadie and she liked it!

**** The dino eggs were fun! I borrowed these from our county's lending library. They are a total mystery to me. I seriously have no idea how they were made but they're really cool looking! Basically, they're colorful plastic dinosaurs living inside Easter egg-sized, clear plastic homes, with a texture similar to that of a fancy, un-started bar of soap. To go with them, I made some match-up sheets to encourage the kids to examine the eggs and play with them a little. I think it worked pretty well.

This is a picture I took of the eggs and sheets a long time ago. I have since lost my original sheets and the eggs got a little cloudier. But this really gets the idea across:

Some "egg-xamining" in action below. The boy pictured was so smart! Instead of matching the eggs with the pictures, he wrote down the name of every type of dinosaur! I told him that was the "advanced way" to do this activity.

What worked least: As a whole, this was a great program (that I received a lot of great feedback about!) but it's true that the paint blowing craft was probably better for the 4+-ers of the group and not the younger kids. Even despite this, the younger ones watched their parents/caregivers blow the paint and still enjoyed the sticker scene aspect of the craft, so I'm not sure I'd have even changed anything in retrospect!

What worked best: The sand. It's always all about the sand.

Books n Play for Pre-K 9/28/16

I haven't written about a session of Books n Play for Pre-K in SO long, and since this week's class was my last one for a while, I decided that it was time for a post.

I've written about this program many times in the past, but I've never blogged about my dinosaurs theme before! Coincidentally, this week's theme was just that... dinosaurs! A real crowd-pleaser, I must say. My group was small--only six kids--but they were a really great, attentive, and rule-following six kids (unlike how they were the last time I blogged about Books n Play for Pre-K), so I was happy!

As usual, I opened the program with our Hello Song (still, as always, A New Way to Say Hello by Big Jeff), and then I moved on to books and songs. The first book I read was The Super Hungry Dinosaur by Martin Waddell (which I read with a raspy, throat-hurty dinosaur voice, obviously), and then Dini Dinosaur by Karen Beaumont. The kids liked both, definitely, but I'd actually go as far as to say that they loved The Super Hungry Dinosaur. The whole room was completely attentive as I read it, totally engaged!

Then we sang a song that I found online called All Around the Swamp. Basically it's a dinosaurs version of Wheels on the Bus. I modified it a tiny bit and this is what we wound up singing:

The Pteranodon's wings went FLAP, FLAP, FLAP… All around the swamp.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex said GRRR, GRRR, GRRR… All around the swamp.
The Triceratops’s horns went POKE, POKE, POKE… All around the swamp.
The Stegosaurus tail went SPIKE, SPIKE, SPIKE… All around the swamp.

The kids were very eager to move onto our crafts and play time. I had a lot of good stuff for them this week, if I do say so myself. As usual, this part of the program lasted for about 20-25-minutes. Here's what I had out:

The craft table:

1. "Fossil" making (aka play dough and a bunch of shells) *
2. Construction paper, crayons, and colorful, foam dinosaur stickers to make a prehistoric scene (see picture below)
3. Stuff to make the Stegosaurus Puppet from this set of free printable dinosaur puppets on PagingSuperMom.com.
4. Trace a Dino Footprint free printable, also from PagingSuperMom.com

And here's what was at the toy table:

1. Sand box and dinosaur fossils to dig up**
2. Dinosaur puzzles
3. Dinosaur "eggs" + matching sheets and crayons ***
4. Dinosaur bones kit + matching and measuring cards ****

* Fossil making with play dough and shells is one of my favorite prehistoric activities. It's a true process over product kind of craft and I like how it's just totally different from the usual coloring or drawing. For this, all I put out were shells, play dough, and paper plates (which you don't really even need if your tables are covered). It's pretty self-explanatory, I guess:

The kids liked this and I think the little siblings might have liked it even more. Plus, it's a good sensory activity!

** I've used the sandbox (and other sensory bins) a bunch of times before in Books n Play for Pre-K and usually, the whole program basically revolves completely around it. Like, the kids eye it before the play time starts and pretty much have to be peeled away from it after it ends. Thank goodness we have covers for these bins or I would have no control at all in the room. Here is some quality dino diggin':

Coupled with the sandbox, I used this Dino-Dig Excavation Kit from Lakeshore Learning. Because our sandbox isn't exactly huge (and neither was our group of kids), I only buried 8 dinosaur skeletons for the kids to dig up and, since they're so young, I didn't even bother with the paint brushes.

*** The dinosaur “eggs” I had are a total mystery to me. I seriously have no idea how they were made (or why they smell kind of funny), but I got them on loan from our county library system and they're really cool! Basically, they're colorful plastic dinosaurs living inside Easter egg-sized, clear plastic homes, with a texture similar to that of an un-started bar of soap. To go with them, I made some match-up sheets to encourage the kids to examine the eggs and play with them a little. I think it worked pretty well, although only one or two kids wound up doing it.

Some "egg-xamining" in action:

**** The dinosaur bones kit + matching and measuring cards were also a loan from our county library system. They're super-cool, but didn't get a ton of attention during the program (but, to be fair, they were competing with a sand box). Basically I received a canvas bag filled with pretty realistic-seeming (both in weight and in texture) dinosaur bones and some cool cards to match them up with to make different dino parts or measure the different bones. STEM central.

At the end of play/craft time, I wrapped up with one more book: Dinosaur Vs. The Library by Bob Shea, which went over ALMOST as well as The Super Hungry Dinosaur, but nottttt quite.

What worked least: I don't know if there was really anything in this program that I'd say "didn't work", per-say. It was really a great group! However, I think for the amount of time and brain-power that I spent trying to find and learn All Around the Swamp, it wasn't super-appreciated. Mostly the kids were ready to move on to the toys and crafts at this point. But now that it's in my repertoire, I'm happy to have it. So no big deal!

What worked best: The Super Hungry Dinosaur by Martin Waddell was SUCH a hit! I highly recommend it for the ages 3-5 crowd! They seriously adored it.