Dinosaur Week

 

It’s dinosaur time at our house this week!  We have decided to try and get O used to a “home school” type routine this summer before the little lady arrives.  We’ll likely be doing preschool at home since (a) we’ll have a newborn, (b) I won’t be working, and (c) we don’t live remotely close to the good preschools in the area.  In order to get O used to the idea, we decided to start with something really fun- Dinosaurs!!

We set up a small world play area, after he went to sleep, with stuff I had found a long time ago at garage sales. 

Then we put his calendar together.  There is a little charm he moves from day to day that hangs on the tacks.  This is a work in progress, as there are a few things I want to add to help relay the passage of time.

Then we made some easy shelf work that would be available all week.  A reusable sticker set

Matching cards to go with our book Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones

A counting game to work on one to one correspondence.  He places the appropriate number of dinos on the card.

And magnets for playing

 

Monday was pretty simple, introduce Circle Time, the calendar, and his small world area.  Then head to the library to find dinosaur books.

He instantly loved the small world area:

The dinos loved getting baths and drinking from the watering hole.

He responded to Circle Time well (it was impossible to take pictures).  We did the Pledge of Allegiance, worked on our calendar and moved the charm to the current day, talked about the month and year, and pulled out the weather cards to find the appropriate ones.  Then we did a Dinosaur Fingerplay and sang a Dinosaur Song.  We went to the library and found four good dinosaur books to read all week. 

Lastly a funny story from our day-

I had a bad headache and could not get Owen to nap, so I told him he could have quiet time with his dinosaurs while I laid on the couch.  When I checked on him a little later, he had taken the dinosaurs and lined them up on the edge of the table, while he stood opposite them and cooked them hamburgers on the grill (not pictured to the right)!  I just couldn’t believe it- such a creative little guy!

 

Day 2 we’ll be focusing on dinosaur eggs and babies, so stay tuned!