So your child is obsessed with dinosaurs and your are wondering what other play props to add to their learning. You can’t get enough of the roars and stomping. Their clothes is all dinosaurs, you have decked the bedroom with dinosaurs, you don’t want to spend more money on toys so, what else can you add to your dinosaur play? How about using what you already have to create more play. Here is one activity done with whole dinosaurs here.
Children love to play the role of a PALEONTOLOGIST what better way to have them be that for a day or more.
TADAAAH! Here you go – A fun sensory play for children of all ages.
Add some fossils in water let freeze whether overnight in your sub zero winter climate or in your refrigerator. I placed this bucket outdoors in the Chicago freezing weather.
The next morning I retrieved the bucket, then invited the children palentologists to excavate.
Bit by bit the hammering caused the bones to loosen up. I know in a real world an archaeologist would NEVER take a hammer to the bones of discovery, but in children’s world there is immense pleasure in hammering – it evokes many emotions and at times they need to release some of their anxieties.
Vocabularies the children learned during this process:
- Paleontologist
- Hammer
- Ribs
- Finger
- Tail Bone
- Spine
- Skull
- Smash
- Loosen
- Freeze
- Big
- Small
The bin was left out for the children to play as they wanted to. Children at times will play on and off with a sensory box. This sensory activity had their focus for a whole day. We know children don’t have much attention span and usually spend little time on any given activity. They left to play and learn with other materials but kept coming back to this sensory STEM activity. After naptime, they went back to it.
At the end of the daycare day some ice and water remained. This sensory winter play gave the children another learning opportunity with dinosaurs, this time their fossils.
This large tub is from Home Depot see here – it’s the contractors mixing tub and I use this for many sensory plays. It’s perfect for both outdoors and indoors.
May your children be transported to a dinosaur world filled with Archaeologist and many Paleontologists.
x0x0 – Miss Sue
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