In my local homeschool group's Enrichment Class Program, I am teaching a Dinosaur Class for preschoolers. I found so many fun things to do, that I thought I'd share it with you. I will share week by week as I complete each class. This can be translated into a Unit Study or Science lesson at home, or for many students in a classroom.
For week 1, I explained to my attentive little group of 3 and 4 year olds that God created the dinosaurs when He created the animals.
I decided to cover T-Rex right away, since that's the dinosaur kids are most familiar with. They were most pleased. : )
We're going to do this lapbook style. Here is the cover. I just bought some cute jungle scrapbook paper and cut it to fit the file folder. I made the title myself.
The T-Rex paper bag puppet doesn't go in the lapbook, but it was just too fun to skip! I found this in a neat book called The Wonders of God's World: Dinosaur Activity Book. It has many activities for a wide range of ages, and they are all creation-based.
This wheel is at Homeschool Share. We talked about the dinosaurs dying out sometime after the Flood of Noah. The wheel gives several possible causes for this, most relating to the change in climate (No, not Climate Change). I spent about 42 seconds on this topic, since the class takes place after lunch, the classroom we use is filled with wonderful toys, and they were very wiggly! We'll recap next week and go into more detail.
Now this nifty T-Rex tooth was my own idea. I saw several templates in books I have of the approximate size of an actual T-Rex tooth, so I traced it onto a paper sack, cut it out, and fancied up the tip with my pinking shears. The kids were very impressed! I asked them to hold it up next to their face and compare it with their own teeth.
We also discussed that the T-Rex was a CAR-NI-VORE, which means "meat-eater." I asked the kids if they were CAR-NI-VORES and they mostly responded "yes!" 