And It’s Over…
Today was the last day of Dinosaur Camp and what a week it’s been. This was the first camp of it’s kind at our church/preschool and it was a screaming success! It was well thought out and organized and the kids have had the best time.
There were four centers: crafts, games, snack, circle. I had the circle center. I found a song in the materials given to me that talked about five different dinosaurs so we sang that every day and the dinosaurs became the Dino of the Day.
Monday Dino of the Day – Tyrannosaurus Rex
After learning a few facts about T-Rex, singing the song and reading a story we did an activity. We used these cute grabbers of various dinosaurs to pick up “eggs” – wadded up pieces of paper we’d colored.
Tuesday Dino of the Day – Brontosaurus
Now before anyone gets all technical on me, the brontosaurus is actually called an apatosaurus. But everyone still calls them brontosaurus and how do you explain that to preschool kids? Exactly. The activity that day was seeing if we could trace all our feet inside the footprint of a brontosaurus:
Wednesday Dino of the Day – Stegosaurus
We also talked about fossils and we made these really cool plant fossils:
Thursday Dino of the Day – Triceratops
When I found out that the average triceratops head was 6.5 feet from the top of his fan to the tip of his beak I knew we had to measure that. So I measured out where 6.5 feet would be on a piece of butcher paper and measured the kids’ heights to see how much bigger the head of a triceratops would be. That was kind of fun.
Then to continue our talk about fossils we broke open “pumice” to see what was inside. Here are one of the homemade pumice stones:
Check out what we found inside:
Friday Dino of the Day – Pterodactyl
After talking about this particular dinosaur we talked about where the dinosaurs lived. The kids really liked this model I made last night:
Not nearly as much as the active volcano, though:
But the biggest draw was the dinosaur egg I bought in Hilton Head on a whim.
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
I don’t know about the kids, but I learned a ton about dinosaurs this week! It was a lot of fun, but I’m glad it’s over. Maybe now I can sleep without dreaming about the following day’s activities!
Lurve the dino egg! And what clever activities. Whenever you can relate something completely unrelatable to the every day (e.g. our footprints in a dino print), you’ve won. What a splendid teacher you are! And my hat is soooo tipped to you with working with the preschool crowd. Cute, but ever-so-energetic!You’ve earned a grande white mocha, Babe. xxxooogretchen
oh, man! great activities! I love the one where you measured how tall the kids were in comparison to the dinosaur. Awesome!!
fabulous ideas! what a great grand finale to your preschool era!
Jen,Those were great pictures. What fun those kids (and adults) must have had. They looked like hands on learning, and pure fun. Get a good nights sleep and have a great weekend.XOXOX
Like an archiologist searching for dino bones, I dig the cookie with the creature inside. Did you send the photo from your I-Bone? Are you now a Tired-Saurus-Jen? Did you have an eggcellent time? Am I, like the dinosaurs, now done? Why yes I am. Good night.
You are the DINOSAUR DIVA, woman!Those were amazing projects you helped think up for your campers!My boys would both LOVE a camp like that!
Gretchen – I admit to being pretty proud of our activities. But the well is totally dry now. One week is all I’ve got! lolMonnik – They were a lot of fun.His Girl – Thanks!Eileen – Thanks to you, too!Mama P – You’re so funny!!! *snort*Becky – “Dinosaur Diva” I like that!
You’ve been writing like crazy! I’m glad your back. I love the activities that you did, you’re so creative!
Um. But. What about the egg? Did it finish hatching? Where are the pictures? *drops head*