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Home » Reading Ideas » Learning to Read » Dinosaur Activities: Beginning Sound Fossil Matching

Dinosaur Activities: Beginning Sound Fossil Matching

October 15, 2014 •

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Our Playful Preschool Series is moving right along.  This month we’ve already explored Fall colors and the nighttime.  This week we move on to dinosaur activities.

A fun fossil dig and alphabet sorting dinosaur activity from growingbookbybook.com

Full Disclosure:  This post contains affiliate links.  Your support of Growing Book by Book is greatly appreciated.

Dinosaur Fossil Making and Matching

Why We Chose This Activity

My kids love to play with playdough and cookie cutters.  They are fascinated with the impressions the cutters leave on the dough.  Since this week is all about dinosaurs, I thought we could explore making fossils to build on their playdough play.

We are also working on beginning sounds so I decided that we would create fossils of different items that began with different sounds so that we could sort them in a follow-up activity.

Preparing the Fossils and Dinosaurs

First, we went on a hunt around the house finding objects that might make good impressions on the dough.  This was a lesson in itself because my son had to really pay attention to details and feel each object to see if it would be a good candidate for the project.  We collected about 10 items to try.  Items that worked well included a key, tire from a toy monster truck, puzzle shape, paperclip, fork, domino and a button.

Dinosaur Activities: make your own salt dough fossils

Then we prepared the super easy salt dough that the kids could help make.   We used the salt dough recipe from Rainy Day Mum.  There was enough dough to make 10 fossils.  My son rolled out pieces of the dough and then pressed each object into a piece of the salt dough.  We transferred the pieces to a baking sheet and baked until hardened.

When the fossils cooled, I buried them in a container of sand.   You will want to have some excavating tools handy such as paint brushes, small shovels or spoons and tweezers.

I took some paper dinosaurs I had on hand and wrote a letter to represent each beginning sound that matched the fossils.  You could print out some dinosaur templates to make your own.  Or, if you have a collection of dinosaur figurines you could label those instead.

Fossil and Dinosaur Sorting

digging for fossils dinosaur activity

Your little archaeologist is now ready to start their fossil dig.  After unearthing the fossils, have them name the impression on each fossil.  Ask your child what sound they hear at the beginning of the word.

fossil and dinosaur matching

Then they should find the corresponding dinosaur letter and place the fossil on the dinosaur.  Play continues until all the fossils have been matched with a letter dinosaur.

preschool books about dinosaurs

Grab some more dinosaur books to read with the kids too on our Dinosaur Book for Preschoolers list.

Keep reading.  Visit the links below for more great dinosaur activities from the Playful Preschool team!

Additional Dinosaur Activities for Preschool by the #PLAYfulPreschool Education Team:

Dinosaur Math Play by The Educators’ Spin On It

Dinosaur Dig for Fossil Puzzles by Mom Inspired Life

Dinosaur Theme for Preschool: Hatching DINO Eggs – Early Math & Science.by The Preschool Toolbox

Dinosaur Activities: Beginning Sound Fossil Matching by Growing Book by Book

Classification and Sorting of Dinosaurs by Rainy Day Mum

Can You Be A Dinosaur? by Learning 2 Walk

Dinosaur Sensory Play by Still Playing School

Dino-Gourd Dinosaur Egg Hunt by Capri + 3

Dinosaur Hatching by Tiny Tots Adventures

Dinosaur Hunting with Paint by Powerful Mothering

Hands-on Play-based Dinosaur Activities by Raising Lifelong Learners

Dinosaur Habitat Sensory Play With Slime by Little Bins for Little Hands

Backyard Dinosaur Dig by The Kennedy Adventures

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Filed Under: All categories, Learning to Read Tagged With: beginning sounds

About Jodie Rodriguez

Jodie Rodriguez is a mom of two young boys and an early childhood/elementary educator with over 20 years of experience. Jodie's passion is helping parents, teachers, librarians and anyone else interested in nurturing and reaching ALL of our youngest growing readers.

Comments

  1. Cassie @ 3Dinosaurs.com says

    October 17, 2014 at 1:23 pm

    This is such a great idea! We love dinosaurs at our house.

  2. The Preschool Toolbox says

    October 16, 2014 at 8:00 pm

    Great sensory and matching ideas for the Dinosaur Theme! I love that you matched the fossil imprints to the beginning letter! Nice post, Jodie!

  3. Colleen Kessler says

    October 16, 2014 at 12:03 am

    This is a great idea — such a fabulous twist on fossils. Where did you get those adorable little shovels and rakes?

    • Jodie Rodriguez says

      October 16, 2014 at 7:02 am

      They are so fun Colleen. My mom found them at a yard sale.

  4. Cerys from Rainy Day Mum says

    October 15, 2014 at 3:23 pm

    We love making fossils and this would be a great way to match the beginning sounds.

    Thank you as aswell for linking to our salt dough fossil recipe 😀

  5. Natasha says

    October 15, 2014 at 10:35 am

    Great idea. Fun and learning all in one. I like that he got to choose what the impression object was.

  6. Danielle says

    October 15, 2014 at 9:08 am

    Great way to work on beginning sounds!

  7. Theresa (Capri + 3) says

    October 15, 2014 at 8:30 am

    We are working on beginning letter sounds with our preschoolers. They would love this hands on activity.

  8. Devany says

    October 15, 2014 at 6:47 am

    I love this creative literacy idea!

  9. Amanda says

    October 15, 2014 at 5:55 am

    Neat idea! I know my son would enjoy helping me make the fossils.

Trackbacks

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