Transition: Colors by the Kiboomers (no music this time as we are adapting the song to the colors the children are wearing)
Materials: laminated letter D, Dinosaurs Dinosaurs by Byron Barton, dinosaurs, play food
Vocabulary and Basic Concepts: same/different, big/little, loud/quiet, long/short, smooth/spiny, stomp, walk, fly, run, swim, eat, identify parts of a whole, labeling body parts, Who/What/Where questions
Preliteracy: Let's pretend to be dinosaurs and use our fingers to stomp around the letter D.
This week Miss Carrie pulled out a giant book (Thanks for those who contributed to this Donors Choose project!) called Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton.
In this book we read about different kinds of dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs have long necks and long tails. Some dinosaurs have sharp claws and sharp teeth. Some dinosaurs have spikes or armor plates or horns. Every time Miss Carrie read the word dinosaurs we clapped our hands over our heads for the syllables and said "DI-NO-SAURS!" in voices that were fierce, or little, or hungry, or tired to match the dinosaur on the page. (FYI: Slowing down and clapping out multisyllable words creates awareness of the sounds in the words and gives children the chance to articulate them.) We kept looking for the eggs and the baby dinosaurs that appeared in the book. We talked about if we had toy dinosaurs at home.
Then Miss Carrie brought out toy dinosaurs that matched the dinosaurs in the book. We played with the dinosaurs and fed them food, and helped them stomp around. We compared what was the same and what was different. Some friends had dinosaurs with short legs and short necks. Some friends had dinosaurs that were different colors. We talked about the dinosaurs and then asked our friends if they wanted to trade. Our friends could say yes or no.
The children had so much fun with this book!
DO THIS AT HOME: check the book out of the library. Pull our your toy dinosaurs or color some dinosaur pictures and cut them out. Get down on the floor and play together. Or you could pretend to be dinosaurs. Go to a dinosaur museum or find more dinosaur books at the library.
