What is it about Preschoolers and Dinosaurs?

Autumn carefully wrapped the fossils and dinosaur bones for shipment to a museum.

Andrew brushes the fossils until they are clean.

Emma takes important notes on the location of the finds. Notice she has her compass next to her. Andrew is in the background studying the map of Illinois for dinosaur dig areas.

Digging for fossils and dinosaur bones.

This week we started a unit on dinosaurs. This is always one of the most popular themes with Preschoolers. I think it is because the dinosaur names are so much fun to say and they are so big. Yesterday and today we talked about Paleontologists, fossils, and dinosaur digs. We pack up a backpack with all the things we will need on our dinosaur dig and then we role play the entire expedition. We make fossil necklaces out of my homemade hardening clay and little dinosaurs. I put sand in the our sensory table along with lots of fossils, teeth, bones, and shells for them to dig up and discover. Today my afternoon class of ten students spent their free time role playing the whole dinosaur dig thing again all on their own. It was so much fun to watch them working through all the different steps we had talked about the day before. I had used a map of Illinois as our map. (I just told them that it showed dinosaur dig areas) Such is the beauty of children who cannot read yet! Today they would unfold that Illinois map and show one another where they had to travel to dig up fossils and bones. Some of them cleaned the fossils with little brushes while others wrapped the fossils in tissue paper and put them into boxes to take to the museum. Still others studied the treasures with magnifying glasses. It was all too funny! Just when you think they aren't listening to anything I tell them, they surprise me by reenacting the entire lesson. Way to go kids!