This preschool dinosaur worksheet is based on the book I'm a Hungry Dinosaur. The activity is based on following directions and offering students a creative way to reflect upon the book.
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I have been craving chocolate lately. Just the smell of chocolate is intoxicating! So go grab a healthy chocolate bar and read up on this new book pairing activity with a preschool dinosaur worksheet! Maybe my chocolate craving is what inspired this multi-sensory chocolate activity. Or maybe this book just lends itself to this type of outcome.
Kane Miller Books
I have really come to appreciate Kane Miller books and the utmost standard and intention they place on each of their children’s books. Although I highly enjoy a book filled with complicated and beautiful illustrations, young children also need simplicity in the illustrations they view. This book has delightful rhyming and simple yet stunning illustrations.
Worksheets in Preschool
Each week in our Literacy Adventures class we focus on a new letter. This week was ‘D’, and we wanted a new activity that was fresh and simple. “I’m a Hungry Dinosaur” was the perfect book to pair with an activity. This preschool dinosaur worksheet took me a while to produce because I wanted it to live up to my teaching standards.
Worksheets are not something that I often bring into my preschool teaching style. Preschoolers typically do not gain anything from rote worksheets. They may look appealing to adults, but children need more abstract activities to meet their developmental needs.
Instruction Following in Preschool
However, part of my intention with this worksheet was to develop verbal instruction following. If you’re a mom or teacher of a preschooler, you know that giving a 3-year-old a 3-step instruction process is a recipe for disaster. By the time you finish telling them the third instruction, they have already forgotten the first instruction! So, although this activity violated my ‘no worksheet’ policy, I knew that there was an intention behind the intrusion of my standard.
This activity also requires a certain amount of fine motor skills. Instead of using a marker, pencil, or crayon to practice writing uppercase and lowercase D’s, the child to paint them! Be prepared for blobs of paint instead of neatly crafted D’s. And be okay with that! It's just another way of developing those fine motor skills needed for a lifetime of writing.
Preschool Dinosaur Worksheet
There are two parks in this worksheet. The first required students to think of a dinosaur name that starts with the letter D. Then they practice their uppercase and lowercase D writing skills. Finally, they paint a chocolate cake, just like the one from the book, with chocolate paint!
To make this paint just mix unsweetened cocoa powder and white paint together!
My favorite part of this project was the chocolate. The little dinosaur in the book makes and bakes a chocolate cake. So, I thought it would be fun if the children were able to paint chocolate Ds! And because I was already craving chocolate, I didn’t skimp on the chocolate-powered. Nope, I bought the ‘good stuff!’ Which made for an interesting afternoon of painting because not only did the kids want to eat the paint, but I’ll admit that I did too!
I would love to share my entire printable with you. You'll receive the worksheet, lesson instructions, materials list, lesson objectives, and an extra cake sheet! Bring it to your classroom, home, or wherever you'd like to try this project. Click on the handy-dandy provided link below to download the PDF!
Maybe next time we’ll have to include a chocolate cake snack at the end of this painting excursion! There are many other preschool activities and book pairings on this website. One of my favorites is creating Bubble Blobs from the book Scribble and Author!
Did your class try this activity!? I would love to see the results. Tag me over on Instagram and let me see!
