Dino Day 2023!

Dino Day 2023 was a roaring success! We started the morning by welcoming our families into the classroom to witness firsthand the kindergartener’s hard work throughout these past six weeks.

The student’s reactions to the classroom makeover were precious!

Each student’s research report was laid on each table, with their dinosaur sculpture, a dinosaur stuffie they designed and sewed, and an iPad so parents could watch their child’s final project!

Here are some examples of the finished projects:

We used the website PebbleGo! for the research portion of the project. I then snapped pictures of each student’s artwork, sculpture, sketches, etc., and uploaded those to an app called Shadow Puppet. Students decided on the order they wanted their pictures, and then they read the information they had researched. I just love how the final project turned out!

After we finished with the parent share part of the morning, we started our Dino Day learning centers. To be official paleontologists, students had a safari hat and a special badge!

I also prepared a packet for each paleontologist to use at specific centers.

As always, I created a visual organizer to help students find their way to each activity. Take a look at what we did:

For more details about each center, read on!

The dino craft station was dinosaur scratch art. The students ALWAYS love scratch art!

The Dino Dig center was nice and messy! Students chose a dino egg and then chiseled it away. After all their hard work, they unearthed a dinosaur!

Next up, students used pattern blocks to create dinosaurs. For an added challenge, they counted, tallied, and recorded the type of pattern blocks they used.

After that, students met with me to create dinosaur sticker stories. They each chose an entire sheet of stickers to create a story! Once the stickers were selected, students wrote a story. Any extra stickers were used to decorate their safari hats!

Lastly was the dinosaur toss, where students tossed bean bags through numbered holes and then wrote and solved addition equations. They had SO much fun with this center!

We ended the day with a herbivore and carnivore feast! Students watched each other’s presentations for the first time while snacking on veggies and dino nuggets.

There were big smiles all around! I have to say I was super impressed with the amount of veggies (fruits!) that were eaten!

We have just a week and a half more of this unit. Next, the kindergarteners will dive into learning about the oceans!

Dino Day!

We are finishing up our Dinosaur Unit, and today was our official “Dino Day,” where it was dinosaur activities ALL DAY! In preparation for our big day, students made a paleontologist hat to wear while participating in the activities.

Our paleontologists worked deep in the jungle today.

 

We used our time from the beginning of school until before lunch to complete seven different rotations. I structured the activities like this:

Let’s take a more in-depth look at the activities. The Fizzy Dino Egg activity started more than two weeks ago when the students each made their own dinosaur egg using baking soda, water, and food coloring.

Students mixed the ingredients.

Then, they molded the mixture around a plastic dinosaur toy, creating the shape of an egg.

We let those eggs dry, and then today, students used pipettes and vinegar to melt the egg and reveal the dinosaur inside!

It took a lot of patience and fine motor work to finally hatch the dinosaur!

The Dinosaur Discovery activity was a write the room activity, where students took their clipboards and walked around the room in search of dinosaur-themed words. They then recorded these words in the Dino Dig Day notebooks. Activity three was Dino Dig, where students had to chisel away and reveal a dinosaur.

Students then had a chance to build dinosaurs using pattern blocks.

For rotation 5, students chose a variety of dinosaur stickers to use as inspiration for writing dinosaur sentences. They LOVED all the sticker choices!

“1. This is a carnivore.
2. It hunts.
Pterodactyl is not a dinosaur.”

I love how students are using their best guess spelling to demonstrate what they have learned!

“1. This is a dinosaur eating a plant.
2. This is a mommy dinosaur that’s coming to its baby.”

Rotation six had students measuring dinosaur footprints and comparing their size to their own feet!

Another dinosaur-themed math activity was the Dinosaur Math Toss where students tossed a bean bag through a hole. They then chose one of the numbers on the hole and used it to write an addition equation, which they later solved.

After the rotations were finished, students had a chance to practice being a paleontologist. They were given paleontologists tools: a chisel (toothpick), a shovel (gelato spoon), and a brush (watercolor brush) to use to excavate chocolate chips from a cookie. Once removed from the cookie, students counted and compared the number of chocolate chips.

It was a fun way to end the day!