Home School: Dinosaur Theme and a Free Printable

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This week, we turned into archaeologists to study dinosaurs during home school.  Dinosaur units are always a favorite of my little one, so of course he had a blast this week!

I used pieces from several different pre-k printable packs this week, including worksheets from 3 Dinosaurs, 123 Homeschool 4 Me, and A Teaching Mommy.  I also used this fun emergent reader from Royal Baloo, called Dinosaur Dinosaur What Do You See?, since it’s modeled after one of my little one’s favorite Eric Carle books.  I also found a fun dot-to-dot printable from Education.com and made use of our magnetic shape board with the help of Little Family Fun, who outlined a variety of dinosaur shape building ideas.

Later in the week, we worked on our math and fine motor skills by digging for dinosaur bones.  I cut out bone shaped pieces from cardstock, then wrote math problems and answers on the bones, and covered the bones with popcorn and rice.  As he dug up the bones with the math problems, he figured out the answer then went searching in the “dig site” for the corresponding bone.

After we did this activity, I thought it would make a great freebie to offer to my readers, so I created a digital download with simple and more advanced math problems featured on each bone. You can access the free printable by signing up for my newsletter here. 

We also used this digging activity with a dinosaur letter matching activity from Creating and Teaching.  I cut out the dinosaur letters then buried a few at a time.  When he found a letter, he identified it and then searched for the matching upper- or lowercase letter in the bowl.

The fun activities continued thanks to Frugal Fun 4 Boys, who conceived the great idea of frozen dinosaur egg excavation.  I had some large Easter eggs and tiny dinosaur toys, so that’s what we used.  I cut a small hole in the top of the eggs, put the dinosaur inside, closed the egg and filled it with water.  I then set the eggs (hole side up) in a container and we placed them in the freezer at the end of one day.  The next day, we took the eggs out of the freezer and opened them up.  (It helped to run them under warm water for a second first)  We used basters to squirt warm water on the “eggs” until they melted and the dinosaurs were free.

Looking for more home school fun? Check out these other posts from my blog:

Kool-Aid Slime and Super Hero Catapults

Home School Preschool: Fizzing Pirate Treasure Hunt