Dinosaurs, D, 2

Literacy activities: Day 1, "dirty dishes" from SEEL. Great Activity. Day 2, Dinosaur Dig rhyme game. I had a baking pan that I had filled with various small things, small erasers with pictures on them, bouncy balls, toy bugs, small pictures, etc. The kids took turns pulling something out of the pan to "feed" to the dinosaur. But we had to change the words to start with /d/. So instead of "ball" we fed him a "doll." Or "dus" instead of "bus." This game resulted in a lot of silly words, and the kids were putting /d/ at the beginnings of many of their words for the rest of the day.

Math activities: Day 1, we sang the song "I have two ears" from the primary children's songbook. We talked about all the things that come in sets of 2. Then we wrote lots of number 2's on my window with window markers. Day 2, I had paper dinosaur footprints all over my house and the kids got to take turns matching them up in pairs, and counting to 2.

Science activities: Day 1, we did the "dinosaur extinction play" that Robyn posted about a couple of years ago. Day 2, we measured how tall various dinosaurs were and then measured each of the kids so they could see how they compare. Then we measured how long a T-Rex was and had the kids do little races (running, jumping, walking backward) along that distance. It turned out to be about 8 sidewalk squares. Perfect.

Choosing time: play with plastic dinosaurs, playdough, blocks, make a paper plate dinosaur, re-visit any of the other activities from the day.