Dinosaur Themed Toddler School Activities
Are your little ones as obsessed with dinosaurs as mine are? Dinosaurs are a childhood favorite and a great way to capture your little one’s attention and curiosity. I put together this engaging Dinosaur Themed Toddler Unit that is sure to capture your child’s interest! I hope you will join us as we learn about dinosaurs!
Lesson Components
This unit is made up of 5 lessons that will work on each include the following activities:
- literacy/language
- sensory bin
- math or science activity
- fine motor activity
- gross motor activity
- art activity
If you want to learn more about how to get started planning activities for your little ones, download my FREE guide for everything you need to know about the skill areas we incorporate into toddler school:
Art Activities
We had so much fun with the art activities this week! We started our unit with the D is for Dinosaur coloring page. This is a great opportunity to let your child express creativity by using different colors and it encourages them to work on their ability to color in the lines.
Dino feet painting was a HUGE hit with my son, Conner. Who doesn’t love to use toys and paint at the same time?!? To set up this activity, just give your child the printable worksheet, a couple small dinosaurs and some liquid paint on a plate. Let your little one explore with the paint and watch them go! This activity really allows parents and teachers to encourage art as a process instead of a product.
Fine Motor Activities
The development of fine motor skills in early childhood is truly the foundation for enhancing important lifelong skills. For our first activity, we used tweezers to place colorful pom poms on the dinosaurs. Using tweezers really helps to build strong muscles in their tiny hands!
For another activity, we used clothespins to place on each spike of the dinosaur. This really challenges the pincer grasp while working on one-to-one correspondence. We had so much fun with this activity! Clothespins may be a utensil your child is not familiar with, but you likely have some of these laying around the house!
I loved watching the focus my son had during this lacing activity. It kept him amused while working on his hand-eye coordination.
Sensory Bins
Sensory bins are always a hit in our house, so let’s take the opportunity to turn them into a teaching tool! For this sensory bin you can use colored rice, beans, or even some pasta. Then, just place the cards into the bin and let your child explore. Little ones LOVE finding the matching puzzle pieces to put together each dinosaur while working on the letter D!
For this next sensory bin, you can use sand to bury the bones and allow your child to be a paleontologist (and teach them a new big word!). Conner spent so much time using his tweezers to dig up the bones and he used a paintbrush to carefully dust them off again and again! This quick and easy sensory bin was extremely engaging while putting his fine motor skills to work. Win-win!
Math Activity
How fun are these Dino Math Cards? We love working on counting and number recognition so these were a huge hit. It also gave us the opportunity to work on colors. You can use pom poms to color match or even grab some super cute dinosaur counters!
Gross Motor Activities
It’s time to brush up on those dinosaur names and get moving! Your little ones will have so much fun pretending to be all the different dinosaurs. Keep some water close by, because we were definitely out of breath by the end of it! These dinosaur cards are an excellent way to get those little bodies moving either at home or in the classroom!
I hope you found some great ideas to use at home with your little ones! If you want to make teaching your toddler EASY this week, then check out my Dinosaur Toddler School Unit for 5 complete lesson plans and all the printables you need to go with them! I hope you enjoy every minute of playing and learning with your little ones this week!
This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase through one of my affiliate links, which helps to support The Primary Brain blog. As always, I only recommend products that I love and all ideas shared are my own.
Written on January 8th, 2021 by Laurin Brainard