Dinosaur Unit Preparation

The unit after our Ocean Unit was about Dinosaurs. I was very lucky to find a garage sale where a former teacher was selling TONS of stuff. I found many educational materials and dinosaur materials for only $13.00!

Wahoo! I love garage sale finds!

Next, I researched on the Internet and found some great resources:


Unit Packs:

http://overthebigmoon.com/wp-content/uploads/download-files/DinosaurPack.pdf

http://www.itsybitsyfun.com/uploads/9/8/7/6/9876061/dinosaur_preschool_pack_0315.pdf

LOTS of different choices here: http://www.inallyoudo.net/freeprintables/printables/animal-printables/dinosaur-printables/

Coloring Pages:

http://www.easypeasyandfun.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Dinosaur-Coloring-Pages.pdf

Word Display Cards:

http://prekinders.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/dinosaur-word-cards.pdf

http://prekinders.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/dinosaur-word-cards21.pdf

Letter Activities:

http://www.inallyoudo.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Preschool-Coloring-Pages_FINAL.pdf


I also made a trip to the library for books, materials, and movies about dinosaurs. I printed off the pages and prepared my folders for each day:

Preparing the room was a lot of fun with all of my garage sale finds. The finished product looked like this:

Add a trip to Wal-Mart for a display board. Dinosaur unit is READY! :)

The End of the Ocean Unit and Beginning a Dinosaur Unit

Day 7 of the Ocean Unit was the last day. I had a few left over projects that we didn't get to and I also wanted to start my next unit: Dinosaurs. We started by doing our calendar and circle/reading time. Amita LOVED the Cow Who Clucked. She laughed through the whole book.

Here was the hodge-podge of things I had for her to do:

Ashima started out wanting to work on a puzzle.

While Ashima did a puzzle, Amita worked on a workbook left over from her Koala Crate this month.

Next she worked on cutting and following directions by putting together this crab. She named him Pete and he still hangs proudly on our wall. She wrote his name on the top.

Ashima then worked on lacing activities.

We explored this month's Little Passport activities. Amita really liked them and the girls made a finger puppet show. It was a lot of fun! We also had a snack during this time.

We then officially began the Dinosaur Unit. I bought one of these tri-fold boards at Wal-Mart for the unit and am planning to make a poster representing the things we did for the unit. The girls were very excited to help set it up.

The first thing to do was to make a banner. I put out the letters on the table and worked on one letter at a time. I would ask, "dinosaur starts with a Dh, Dh, sound. What letter makes a Dh sound?" They would say the letter D and then find it in the pile. We did this for all of the letters.

We also did a KWL chart. KWL is well-known in the education world and stands for Know, Want to Know, and Learn. It follows us through the unit. I started by asking the girls what they already know about Dinosaurs and wrote it down. Next I asked them what they wanted to know and again wrote it down. This also helped to guide me a bit in my lesson planning.

I also made a list to write in all of the books we read about Dinosaurs.

That brought us to nap time and we were completely ready to start a Dinosaur unit the next day!