Our little one has been interested in animals that hatch from eggs like chickens and penguins!
Over the holidays we recorded some movies, one of them being Happy Feet and her love for music and dancing combined with penguins just blossomed!
I put together some penguin themed activities for her shelf and she loves playing with these penguin figurines from Amazon. We froze the penguins in ice and added them to the sensory table in our playspace. We kept these plastic eggs from the chocolate surprise eggs and added them to her table as well.
Another theme to add these eggs to is a Dinosaurs theme! We found some toy eggs at the dollar store as well as this “Dino hatching” egg. You place it in a container with a lid and put some water over it - changing it daily and over and after a few days you and your little ones excitedly watch and check in anticipation as the Dino hatches! The smaller egg (a reptile) took a bit longer to hatch, we added it to our sensorial table at first and then put it in another container.
Our little one enjoyed going to see the baby dinosaur hatching more and more each day and when it did, she loved helping to break apart the egg shells.
Totally a favourite activity here!
We added in some dinosaur motor skills activities as well as language and math.
The idea here is to follow your little ones interests. Simply by starting with a dinosaur hatched from an egg, there are different kinds of dinosaurs (have dinosaur figurines), add in some sensory play and letter D’s for dinosaur (to name a few)! Go from there.
Check out our dinosaur themed activities below:
Dinosaur footprints & play dough: we brought play dough out for the very first time and it was a hit - not only for our little one but for us adults too! I started off with one colour and two items to shape the playdough (rolling pin and a cookie cutter).
Our little one played with the play dough first and accessories then we added in some dinosaur figurines to make footprints - and added this to our paint tray as well! Rotate the colours and accessories.
Dino footprints: speaking of Dino footprints, this is a great activity for active play, language, math and motor skills! Follow and count the Dino footprints. I purchased these a few years ago at the Dollar Store. They came in a set of 3 dinosaurs, footprints and an egg.
Our little one enjoyed the repetition and mastering this activity by placing the footprints in a row, one at a time and jumping along with the egg, counting each footprint and carrying the egg to the dinosaur. There are so many possibilities with this activity. You can even make this yourself out of some coloured card stock.
Cut and paste Dino footprints: scissors, construction paper strips, glue stick, Dino foot template. Your little one can glue the pre-cut or rip pieces of paper onto the footprint and/or you can introduce and practice scissors practice.
D is for dinosaur: letter D’s from your child’s puzzles and toys, an empty wipes box (which has that button at the top to open the lid - that’s great for motor skills), and a cloth bag to store items. This activity is really open ended with so many possibilities for your little one.
D is for drum: added this letter D created by project by jess from Leap Frog’s The Letter Factory to our shelves as well, since we introduced the letter D, to colour and practice letter sound.
Dinosaurs sensory table: fill with pasta (to resemble bones), toy dinosaurs, utensils and cups for pairing and scooping, plastic toy eggs, can add some egg carton cuttings - resembles egg shells and can use for pasta, dinosaurs and/or eggs too. You don’t need to have a table, it can simply be in a bin(s) from the Dollar Store.
Dinosaur books: add to the shelves or by the sensory bin/table to extend on the activities - from your collection, or the local dollar store/library!
Dinosaur re-usable stickers: via Melissa and Doug these are fantastic! They come in a pad with other animal stickers.
We hope you enjoy these dinosaur themed activities as much as we do!
Hope that you find some inspiration to add to your little ones play area to help encourage hands-on learning and explore together! Whether it’s a few of these or some items of your own that you come across or using what you have.
Enjoy!