Digging for Dinosaurs: A finding and matching activity
Most kids are fascinated with dinosaurs at some stage of their childhood. Sometimes it’s a brief fascination and sometimes it lasts years. Of course, for a few lucky kids the fascination never leaves them and they follow their passion and become palaeontologists. Dinosaurs are really fascinating if you think about it. They existed in the world long ago but are not part of the world now. We know a bit about them from the evidence gathered by palaeontologists and that has provided us with some facts about dinosaurs. BUT we don’t know everything about them and that means we can use our imaginations to conjure up all kinds of theories about them. That’s the fascination. Play with dinosaurs and you combine fact and fiction!
We have created a short video to show a dinosaur find and match activity where kids can pretend to be palaeontologists. Our video can be watched by clicking here.
Let’s take a closer look at what is happening. We carefully hid the small toy dinosaurs in a tub of sand. We made sure that the dinosaurs were close to the surface and we invited our budding palaeontologists to find them. Hidden objects are exciting to find. Kids love it! They feel a great sense of achievement when they have found hidden objects. To them it’s a job done well!
Before starting, we discussed how palaeontologists dig up dinosaur bones. For most kids, they have a good stash of prior knowledge about the work of palaeontologists so be prepared to learn a fact or two from your budding palaeontologist! The idea of this play set up is to use the brushes gently to reveal the dinosaurs. Some kids might need a demonstration to show how this is done. Time to hand over the brushes for some dinosaur find fun!
For some kids, the biggest learning will be to maintain gentle control of the brushes and to be patient. Some kids will be able to do this easily and others will have to find out for themselves that using slow and gentle movements is best to find the dinosaurs. There will be some kids who can’t do that. All that means is that this isn’t the way that they want to play this game. That’s okay! Change up the game to something more action-packed like bury the dinosaurs and dig them out with a spade. What matters is the enjoyment of hiding and finding the dinosaurs. Your child might prefer to hide something different so don’t worry if the dinosaurs are replaced. The cars or shells or whatever it might be is just your child following their interest and that’s a good thing!
We have provided a free dinosaur printable set for you to use with the dinosaur dig set-up. The dinosaurs might be in your child’s dinosaur collection but if some aren’t then use dinosaur books as well. Have these close to the dinosaur dig set up so your child can match the found dinosaurs to the cards. This is a great early literacy experience for pre-readers and an opportunity to extend literacy learning for readers.
Finally, engage in conversations while playing dinosaur dig. You might be amazed to discover how much your child knows about dinosaurs. If they know more than you do then tell them. Use the opportunity to acknowledge them as experts and let yourself be the willing learner. Kids love to repeat over and over if they are really into something. So be prepared to stay a while if the dinosaur dig is a big hit!
Have a roaring good time playing and learning about dinosaurs. This 100 page dinosaur printable will help to support children’s interests in dinosaurs. This resource shows three ways to set up a dinosaur small world, including one small world made entirely from printed pictures (included in this resource). This resource is intended to be used how you want to use it and our ideas are just suggestions.
This printable dinosaur resource includes:
photos and ideas of three different ways to make a small world
descriptions and pictures of each type of item and how to use it
pictures of volcanoes, trees, mountains, dinosaurs and ground textures to make a printable small world
fossil pictures and photos
paleontologist equipment gear list
dinosaur skeleton pictures
dinosaur photo scenes
dinosaur words
dinosaur picture and word cards
writing and drawing page
labelled dinosaur diagrams
dinosaur labelling activities
lots of dinosaur colouring pages
count and find activity page
look and find activity page
dinosaur dot to dot pages
dinosaur mazes
dinosaur word searches
dinosaur poem
dinosaur skeleton activity silhouettes
dinosaur dice game
dinosaur would you rather game
dinosaur memory game
This bright and fun dinosaur resource will have plenty of ideas for dinosaur enthusiasts of all ages.
Find our video here to see our three small world ideas: https://youtu.be/8ZHWaJlKXMg
This document is a digital resource and you will be sent a link for a PDF download.
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! Enter Dinoland with these dinosaur activity cards. Your palaeontologist can choose the next dinosaur adventure from these 20 ideas. Will it be digging for bones or turning into a dinosaur? Choose a card and you will know!
Have the cards ready for your next rainy day, play date or special family activity. Kids can choose the card they want to play and then the adventure begins! With a range of play prompts and activities, there is a good variety of ideas to suit any adventurer as well as a range of ages.
These dinosaur kids activities and play ideas are true favourites for a fun filled dinosaur playtime. The ideas and activities featured in the cards promote learning through play by allowing kids to build their creativity, problem solving and independence.
These cards are suitable for ages 3 - 10 years old with adult supervision required for younger children.
This is a digital product which you can download and print to make a 20 card dinosaur play adventure set. The PDF contains 6 pages with 4 cards on each page.
