Letter D Theme - Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Book List:
How Do Dinosaurs (count to ten, learn their colors, play with friends, clean room, go to school, eat their food) series by Jane Yolen & Mark Teague
Dinosaur ROAR! By Paul and Henrietta Strickland
Ten Terrible Dinosaurs by Paul Strickland
Can I Have a Stegosaurus, Mom? by Lois Grambling
Dancing Dinosaurs by Sally Lucas
Usborne Touchy-Feely That's Not My Dinosaur . . .
Oh My Oh My Oh DINOSAURS! by Sandra Boynton
Usborne Dinosaurs by Fiona Watt and Rachel Wells
Danny and the Dinosaur books by Syd Hoff
Dazzle the Dinosaur by Marcus Pfister (There is also a movie of Dazzle the Dinosaur)
Ten Little Dinosaurs by Jim Harris (There is a version you can buy with the fingerpuppets that is so cute!)

Dinosaur Worksheets:
There are tons of great dinosaur theme worksheets for Pre-K through 3rd Grade on Learning Pages, but you have to be a member to access this link. Membership is free! To sign up for a free membership, click here. When prompted, store your username and password in your computer so you don't have to login in every time--it is so easy that way! Learning Page has some of my very favorite worksheets. They also have dinosaur fact files and clipart. You will be seeing more links to their resources!
After signing up for a membership, click here to access the dinosaur files:
http://learningpage.com/pages/menu_wkshts/fact_dino.html

Here's another great link for dinosaur math worksheets for different levels--through 5th grade:
http://www.kidzone.ws/math/dinosaur/index.htm

Fingerplays and Songs:

http://www.everythingpreschool.com/themes/dinosaurs/songs.htm

http://www.bry-backmanor.org/dinosaurs/dinofingerplays.html
This one has a cute dinosaur hunt rhyme (like Going on a Bear Hunt)

10 Little Dinosaurs Felt Board Story: Color Black & White I use this to count backwards, skip count to 10, and basic addition/subtraction (there were 10 dinosaurs, I took two away, how many are left?)

Dinosaur Alphabet Book: Color Black & White

Make dinosaurs of different colors--out of felt or colored paper, or just color dinosaur pictures different colors. Play sort of a memory game where you have the kids close their eyes and take away a dinosaur. When they open their eyes, they try to guess which dinosaur you took away.

Activity Ideas:
Make dinosaur sock puppets using felt to make teeth and scales, and buttons for the eyes.

Make dinosaurs out of salt dough and bake in the oven until they are hard. Paint when finished. Use toothpicks to help add details such as eyes and mouth and form scales. Also, make fossils this way by pressing a plastic dinosaur into the salt dough then baking (you could also use playdough to do these activities and not bake or paint it.)

Salt Dough Recipe:
2 Cups Flour
1 Cup Salt
1 Cup Water (add slowly)
Knead for several minutes, then let sit about 20 minutes before beginning your project.
Bake at 200F until salt dough is hard and dry (a few hours--watch closely!!)

Have a dinosaur dig--hide dinosaurs in a bucket of sand, sandbox, or big container of beans and let the kids pretend to be a Paleontologist by digging to find the dinosaurs.

Visit a dinosaur park/museum

Make a volcano and talk about Pangea (see volcano posting)

Snack Ideas:
Dinosaur chicken nuggets, donuts, jello jigglers in the shape of dinosaurs, dinosaur fruit snacks, Sunny “D”