Fun with the letter "D"

We recently celebrated "D is for Dinosaur week" here on the gravelly road.

Books

I had a very excited helper when we went to the library to look for dinosaur books so we came home with a big stack, on top of some we already had :)  Here were our favorites:

• Inside Dinosaurs and Other Prehistoric Creatures by Steve Parker and Ted Dewan
• Skippyjon Jones and the Big Bones by Judy Schachner
• Tyrannosaurus Was a Beast by Jack Prelutsky
• Can I Have a Stegosaurus, Mom? Can I? Please!? by Lois G. Grambling
• Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff
• The Day of the Dinosaur by Stan & Jan Berenstain

Activities

1)  He worked on a fun D is for Dinosaur color sheet.  I loved watching him color the spots and spikes on the dinosaur so carefully.

2)  Letter "d" Dinosaur Craft

 

First I cut out the long rectangle and the circle and let my son put them together to make a lower case letter "d".  Then we talked about several other letters you can make out of those shapes.  After gluing the pieces down, we added a dinosaur head, tail, feet and an eye.  My son decided it was not going to be a meat-eater so asked if we could put a plant on the picture for the dinosaur to eat.  Then we added the brown spikes/plates on the tail and back.  

3)  Play-doh and Dinosaur Toys

First we made imprints in the play-doh from the dinosaurs, comparing shape/size of their feet, teeth, horns, and skin patterns.  I think he had the most fun making the footprints.

Then I took a small dinosaur toy and covered it with play-doh while he wasn't looking.  I gave him a small screw driver (think chisel/pick), a brush, and a plastic tweezers. We talked about how careful paleontologists have to be when trying to uncover fossils. Then I let my little scientist go to work. It was so fun to listen to him -- he used a deep voice when he was pretending to be the paleontologist, explaining what he was finding.

4) We watched the tv show Dinosaur Train on PBS, to stay with our theme :)

5)  Besides the color sheet above that had letter writing practice, he also practiced writing the letter d on the white board and in one of his notebooks.

He had a fun time and there are so many fun activities out there with dinosaurs.  We probably could stick with the theme for a month, but I'm ready for a new one!