D is for Dinosaur

D is for Dinosaurs!  At least in my room this week.  There are so many fabulous dinosaur units to pull from.  Kids love dinosaurs.  This week we talked about habitats of dinoaurs, what they ate, how they protected themselves, and how they traveled.  We made a few dinosaurs of our own.  We made "Name Dinosaurs".  They paint their dinosaur and I give them the spiny plates (colored triangles) with the letters of their name on them.  They have to put them in order on top of their dinosaur's back.

 We also used our handprints to make some dinosaurs.  We love to paint!

 Like all great teachers, I search and borrow ideas from other teachers.  One of my favorite teacher that has great idea for independent learning stations is Julie Lee.  She has some awesome ideas! Many times though, the content is too hard for my little Pre-Kers.  So sometimes I take her ideas and make them to fit our curricuclum and ability level.  This is one of those.  My kiddos were palentologists and went on a "Dinosaur Hunt".  I put colored dinosaurs all over the room with letters on them (only up to D because that's as far as we have gotten).  They had a paper in their hands with lettered dinosaurs and they had to go "find" the dinosaur with the matching letter and color it the right color.This was one of their favorite activities of the week.