Dinosaurs
Hunting for Dinosaurs
This game can be played indoors or outdoors, but we usually save it for a rainy day. Give a child a large basket and have her gather all of her plastic toy dinosaurs. Once she is convinced that she has them all, count them according to size (e.g., 11 large, 8 medium and 7 small). Then send the child into another room, close the door and have ...(read more)
Shoebox Diorama
Almost all kids have little plastic animal figurines. This project gives your child something new to do with them. Take some old magazines and catalogs, and cut out pictures of scenery -- mountain ranges, jungles, forests, etc. Alternatively, your child can draw his or her own scenery. Then glue your scene to the bottom of the inside of a shoebox, and turn the box on its ...(read more)
Dinosaur Sock Puppets
Have your child stuff an old sock with cloth or paper scraps. While he's doing that, cut a wide oval out of cardboard. Fold the cardboard oval in half and help your child glue it to the instep of the sock. Next, decide what kind of dinosaur your child wishes to make. Then cut those dinosaur's features out of felt. For example, you might ...(read more)
Little Paleontologists
Give your little paleontologist a head start with extra digging practice. Bury several little dinosaur figures in your child's sandbox, and help her dig for them. (If you don't have a sandbox, you can create one from a big plastic container and some play sand.) As you work together to dig up the dinosaurs, explain to your child how dinosaurs lived long ago, and how paleontologists dig for ...(read more)
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