Dinosaur Themed Preschool Activities

Last updated on March 7th, 2024

Dinosaur Themed Preschool Activities

I challenge you to find me a child that doesn’t think dinosaurs are awesome. Dinosaurs are just so fun and exciting for little kids – they are huge, they have cool names, they roar, what more is there to love?

We are at home learners, but this roundup of activities is for everyone – whether you are at home learners like us or looking to supplement your preschooler’s time at home.

Come take a look at our dinosaur themed preschool activities – there are SO many good ones!

Dinosaur Themed Play Shelf

Let’s start with our dinosaur themed play shelf. The 6-cube shelves are my go to because they are affordable, easy to clean, and the toys are very accessible on the low, open shelves.

I like to keep the toys in open baskets so that toys are visible at a glance and are easily accessed.

1. Dinosaur Take-Apart-Toys
2. Mini Plastic Dinosaurs + Medium Sized Plastic Dinosaurs
3. Toniebox featuring the Laurie Berkner Band Tonie
4. Magnatiles
5. Books
6. More Magnatiles
7. Dinosaur Chunky Wooden Puzzle (the top shelf)

I bet if you look around, you’ll notice you have more dinosaur toys than you realize. A few favorites I try to always include on a toy shelf: puzzles, Toniebox, books, building toys, and pretend play toys.

Dinosaur Learning Activities

Salt Dough Dinosaur Fossils

This kitchen activity was very simple to put together and do with my 2 year old and 4.5 year old. We created salt dough dinosaur fossils – and later used them in our sensory bin (I’ll get to that).

Dinosaur Fossil Supplies:

• 1-2 Cups of Wheat Flour*
• 1 C salt
• 1/2 Cup warm water
• plastic dinosaurs

Dinosaur Fossil Instructions:

1. Using a spatula and your hands, mix together the flour, salt, and warm water until it’s a dough-like consistency. *The amount of flour will greatly depend on the brand of flour you use. Just add flour and water until the correct consistency is obtained – dough-like – not too dry and not too sticky.
2. Pinch off bits dough and roll into a ball and than flatten them out with your hands to make a bunch of small circles.
3. Press plastic dinosaurs into the circles of dough to create your fossil imprints. You can make dinosaur footprints too!
4. Place each fossil on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper and bake at 250F for about an hour or so.
5. Let them dry overnight on a cooling rack and they will be hard by morning and ready to be played with.

Dinosaur Themed Sensory Bin

We did just one sensory bin for this theme, but we used it in a multitude of ways, so that it got a lot of use.

Dinosaur Fossil Dig Sensory Bin

For this sensory bin, we used our salt dough fossils and went digging for them in a rice bin, emulating paleontologists. It was a HUGE hit.

Dinosaur Fossil Dig Sensory Bin Supplies

• white rice
• dinosaur fossils (see activity instructions above)
• paint brushes
• optional: plastic dinosaurs used for fossil creation

Dinosaur Fossil Dig Sensory Bin Instructions

1. Gently place your dried salt dough dinosaur fossils in the bottom of your sensory bin, spaced evenly and flat.
2. Add cheap, white rice to cover up the fossils.
3. Throw in some dry paint brushes.
4. Demonstrate digging for fossils (gently) and using the dry paint brushes to wipe away the rice over top the fossils (similar to a paleontologist wiping dirt and dust off of fossils).
5. Extension: add in the plastic dinosaurs that you used to create the fossils and try to match up the fossils with the correct dinosaur. Do the same with the footprint fossils made.

Chunky Wooden Dinosaur Puzzle Dig Sensory Bin

Chunky Wooden Dinosaur Puzzle Dig Sensory Bin Supplies

• rice
• sensory bin
• chunky wooden dinosaur puzzle

Chunky Wooden Dinosaur Puzzle Dig Sensory Bin Instructions

Another way to extend the rice bin for the same theme is to go digging for wooden dinosaur puzzle pieces. This would be a great activity for younger toddlers as the puzzle pieces are far easier to manipulate than fossils.

They can work to dig and discover puzzle pieces and then put them in place on the puzzle board.

Dinosaur Footprint Color Match Sensory Bin

This activity was a huge hit and so much fun to do with the kids. It’s a sensory bin, color match, fine motor, gross motor activity all in one! Whew!

Dinosaur Footprint Color Match Sensory Bin Supplies

• free printable dinosaur feet color match by Activity-Mom.com
• rice
• sensory bin
• paint brushes

Dinosaur Footprint Color Match Sensory Bin Instructions

1. Pour rice into a sensory bin and then bury the circle part of the dinosaur feet color match printable.
2. Spread out the dinosaur feet on the floor in any pattern you want (mine were set up to look like dinosaurs walking).
3. Demonstrate using dry paint brushes and fingers to dig and find the colorful dots.
4. Once a colorful dot is found, run over to the dinosaur feet and match the colors of the dots and dinosaurs together until all dinosaur feet have been matched.
5. Repeat and repeat!
6. Optional: You can add some painter’s tape to the backs of the feet so they stick to the floor. You could also add clear adhesive Velcro dots to the backs of the colored dots and the open white spot on the dinosaur feet so they stick together when matched.

Dinosaur Learning Activities

Dinosaur Play Dough Kit

We tend to forget that play dough is a sensory activity too! I absolutely LOVE creating DIY play dough kits and am very proud of this dinosaur play dough kit I created for my kids.

Dinosaur Play Dough Kit Supplies

• 3 different play dough colors
• gems and jewels
• diltani dried pasta
• googly eyes
• plastic dinosaurs
• dinosaur play dough molds
• dinosaur mini cookie cutters
• dinosaur mini erasers (Target dollar spot)
• play dough tools such as: scissors, icing creator, rolling pin (different textures), knives, scoops, pizza cutter tool, etc.
• stackable clear container to store kit

Dinosaur Play Dough Kit Instructions

Once you set up your kit as pictured, here are some different ways you can show your kids how to use the kit.

1. Make dinosaur play dough molds
2. Make dinosaur cut outs with the cookie cutter
3. Create flat dinosaurs – use the googly eyes, the icing creator can be used to pipe out a long tail and legs (and the scissors can cut the legs down to size), the noodles can be used as spikes, the gems for decoration or hard plated bodies, the bumpy rolling pin can be used to create rough dino skin
4. Create a Jurassic world – use green for trees, blue for ocean, brown for earth and place your dinosaur mold dinos in the ‘world’ they create. You can use the dinosaur mini erasers too. For my 2 year old, I showed her how to make stepping stones out of noodles and had the dinosaurs ‘stomp, stomp, stomp’ on each noodle as they walked. We added blue gems into the ‘ocean’ to make it really pretty.

As you can see, there are endless play options here! Sometimes it helps to show an example of how the kit can be used and then your kid will expand on that and use their imagination after having a little inspiration from you.

Dinosaur Painting and Dinosaur Bath

Grab some paint, paint brushes, and plastic dinosaurs. Go to town painting all over the dinosaurs and afterward, rinse them off with water for a dinosaur bath. Repeat as many times as you want!

Extension: paint the dinosaur’s feet and create footprint artwork!

Dinosaur Handprint Keepsake Artwork

Paint your preschooler’s hand and then stamp it onto paper.

Then, have them use their finger to make dots along the spine of the ‘dinosaur’ handprint to create spikes.

Lastly, glue one googly eye on near the thumb of the handprint. Add in a cute message if you’d like: ‘my love for you will never go extinct!”.

Dinosaur Magnatile Shapes

Head over to Oh Hey Let’s Play for all the details on this awesome Magnatile dinosaur shape set up.

Dinosaur Nest Dessert

Sometimes, we will add a fun treat to go with our theme and enjoy it with our weekly family movie night. I usually make this dessert around Christmastime – but decided it could totally work for our Dinosaur Week.

Dinosaur Nest Dessert Ingredients:

• Chow Mein noodles
• cocktail peanuts
• white chocolate for melting (milk chocolate would work too)
• Icing (any color would work)
• Sprinkles (optional, any color would work)

Dinosaur Nest Dessert Instructions

1. Mix chow mein noodles and cocktail peanuts together (just eyeball it) and pour melted white chocolate over top and mix into fully coated.
2. Scoop out globs of the mixture and try to form into round shapes, to look like nests, and set on a parchment paper lined baking sheet to harden up.
3. Pipe out some icing to look like round dinosaur eggs. Top with sprinkles.
4. Once hardened up and dried, enjoy! *Use caution when serving peanuts to children as they are choking hazards for young toddlers*.

Dinosaur Themed Independent Work

Free Dinosaur Coloring Pages by EasyPeasyandFun.com

Dinosaur Color by Number by HomeschoolPreschool.net

Dinosaur Dot Marker Pages by TwoPinkPeonies.com

Dinosaur Mazes by TheArtisanLife

Dinosaur Preschool Math Pack by HomeschoolPreschool.net

Dinosaur Themed Printables

Dinosaur Memory Game by SimpleEveryDayMom.com

Dinosaur Footprint Color Matching by Activity-Mom.com

Dinosaur Play Dough Mats by Fun-A-Day.com

Dinosaur Count & Clip Cards by TheKeeperoftheMemories.com

Dinosaur Pattern Block Mats by TeachingWhereYoureCalled.com

Dinosaur Themed Picture Books

We really enjoyed this theme and the picture books that went along with it. Here are some of the titles that we loved – you can follow the links to Amazon or search them at your local library.

My Big Dinosaur Book – Priddy Books

Big Book of Dinosaurs – Mathieu Fortin

Dinosaur Dig – The Berenstain Bears

If You Happen to Have a Dinosaur – Linda Baly + Colin Jack

Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug – Jonathan Stutzman

Touch & Feel Dinosaur

Dinosaurs Love Underpants – Claire Freedman + Ben Cort

Tiny T. Rex and the Very Dark Dark – Jonathan Stutzman

National Geographic Kids Little Kids Frist Big Book of Dinosaurs – Catherine D. Hughes

Wrap it Up

Well, that’s a wrap on our dinosaur themed preschool activities. Be sure to check our our Farm Themed Preschool Activities and also our Pet Themed Preschool Activities!