Dinosaurs!

My son absolutely loves Dinosaurs.  I am not sure why but it seems all boys just automatically love Dinos!

Today we received a big package from my Mother and it had some awesome stuff in it. One of the coolest things was the Velcro crafts! These where $5.00 each and my Mom found them on clearance for $.50. (she is so savvy) They are really neat they are felt cutouts with an adhesive on the back. They come with clips with Velcro on them. The idea is to put them on the wall and turn them into hooks to hold pictures and so on. One of the packages had dinosaurs. There are 12 dinosaurs total, but only 4 types. As soon as I seen them my "craft  brain" got to working.  I decided to make a game for Dominic to learn matching, colors and the dinosaurs names.

 

Supplies:

*Velcro Crafts-Dinosaurs

*Card Stock for background

*Create and print out Name and Color Cards

*Sheet protector for keeping the game nice while put up

*Zip lock baggies to hold the Dinosaurs and Cards

How I created the game:

 

First: After checking out the Velcro crafts contents I picked out 8 of the dinosaurs to mount onto the cardstock.  One page had 4 dinosaurs each a different color, the second page had the same 4 dinos in a different order. These dinos where facing the opposite direction.  I thought this would be a good way for him to learn matching by thinking and not just holding them over each other and matching the perfect ones. I then created Name, and Color cards and print them out on cardstock for durability.

Next: I took the 4 remaining dinos and added the clips to them. These will be the dinosaurs we use to Match to the dinos mounted on the paper.

Dominic really enjoyed playing the matching game.  I would tell him the name of the dinosaurs and tell him details about each of them. Example the T-Rex has a really big mouth and short arms. I was really impressed how well he did matching each of the dinosaurs!!

After we matching the dinosaurs a couple rounds we decided to work on color identification. I placed the clips on the color name cards and told him what each said. 

Dominic is only 2 and doesn't recognize colors by their names just yet so I got out some of our color flash cards so I could show the colors we were working on.  Again Dominic did a great job.  He matching Red and green perfectly every time!

We worked on colors for a little bit and then I showed him the Name cards. They are a bit too old for him but I figured he would learn the dinos names if we worked on it. I would read him the name on the card and describe the Dinosaur to him.  He would then look for that dino and match the name card to the correct dinosaur. He now knows that a brontosaurus has a long neck, a T-Rex has a big mouth and short arms, the Triceratops has 3 horns, and the Pterodactyl has wings and looks like a bird.

 

 We Had a great time playing the Dinosaur Game!  

We are having Dino cakes (rice cakes) and watching We're back for our snack time.  Dinosaur day is so much fun.  After his nap we are going to Paint the Dinosaur plates (more clearance goodies my Mom found!) and after dinner we are going Dinosaur Hunting! (I will gather his dinosaur toys and hide them outside, we search the yard looking for them.  The best part of this is Dominic calls the fallen walnuts "Dinosaur poop" so I will use them as clues to find the dinos! )

Toddlers are so much fun, check back often to see what other learning adventures this Proud Mommy and her Amazing 2 Year Old will share!!