Discovery! Dino Science

(I want to take this moment to thank Abby at Abby the Librarian immensely for her Preschool Lab Dinosaur science program where I got most of my ideas.)

Today’s storytime began with another set of books to introduce our topic for the day: dinosaurs!

Dinosaurs by Lila Prap
Inside/Outside Dinosaurs by Roxie Munro

We had a lot of great conversations during the books. Some of the kids wanted to know whether or not the dinosaurs were meat-eaters or plant-eaters. A lot of the kids were super impressed that I could explain what each dinosaur name meant. (Inside/Outside Dinosaurs translates each dino name!) This also turned into a great teaching lesson for caregivers as I talked to them about how I didn’t read every word/box in “Dinosaurs” but was still able to share a non-fiction book with this age group.

And our stations for today:

Stegosaurus Spike Roll
The kids rolled a large foam dice and tried to get all five spikes on their dinosaur. This could have been played as a game between kids, but my kiddos worked collaboratively trying to get everyone’s dinosaur loaded up with spikes.

Model Magic Fossils
I bought some dinosaurs for the program and had the kids use them at this station to make fossils. We talked about how if they left their Model Magic out to dry that it would harden overnight and feel like a real fossil. A lot of the kids spent a good deal of time here making fossils over and over again.

Dinosaur Puppets
I wanted to have a station that encourage imaginative play and this was an easy solution. Kids also had the chance to work on scissor skills which is something that local teachers have told me is in desperate need *before* children arrive at school. There was lots of great play here with kids chasing their caregivers with their dinosaurs.

Footprint Size
I drew a rough template of an apatosaur using the American Museum of Natural History’s website as a guide. My footprint was definitely not perfect, but it got the point across. The kids were *amazed* as how big the footprints were.

Mud Dough
I made some dirt dough/paint using this recipe. I added dinosaur figurines to our play set and the kids went to town. (The library does have smocks which are mostly old summer reading t-shirts.) Most of the kids absolutely loved this station, but I had a few mess-phobic kiddos that made me worry about next week’s all play dough making session.

This session’s Pinterest photo: