Preschool Dinosaur Discovery Table
Encouraging Exploration & Discovery of New Ideas
Hands On Preschool Dinosaur Play & Learning
Here’s our dinosaur themed discovery table to go with our current unit on what else, dinosaurs! I always like to include sensory play, so I have homemade play dough for making fossils or whatever and a craft sand filled with bin with dinosaur bones for excavation. I included lots of dinosaurs for pretend play, books for learning about dinosaurs and a tray with dinosaur magnets to play look at and compare!
These are all easy and open-ended activities for him to explore and discover. I tried to include lots of opportunities for independent play or at least play that didn’t need my full support to enjoy! He enjoyed brushing off the bones and sifting through the sand to find all the bones. He pushed the dinosaurs into the clay (I showed him how to ball the dough around them and make “eggs”) and he also made a play dough cave! We love books so he looked through them all quite a few times and we read them together. Pretend play is a bit tougher for him but he liked the dinosaur tree house I found at a second-hand store and made the dinosaurs climb around a bit!
Our Newest Dinosaur Small World Play With Easy To Make Slime
MORE AWESOME DINOSAUR ACTIVITIES
Angela
August 6, 2013 at 8:33 pmThis is amazing! So many wonderful ideas!! I’m definitely pinning this.
littlebins
August 6, 2013 at 11:44 pmThanks Angela! Dinosaurs have ended up going two weeks because of all the great activities to do!
Christine
August 8, 2013 at 3:56 amWould you give me a list of the books you used and where you found all the cute accessories, i.e. bones, stamps for fossils etc. This is darling and want to take advantage of your brilliant imagination!
Lindsey Whitney
August 8, 2013 at 12:12 pmI think we ended up with the same set of dinosaurs — many of yours look familiar, which is funny since we’ve collected ours here and there. My daughter (age 3) loves anything Dinosaur, so we’ll be pinning this activity for Dinosaur week for sure! Thanks for the book suggestions. (Visiting from Tender Moments link up)
littlebins
August 9, 2013 at 1:59 amHaha. We have gotten most of ours used so they come from everywhere except for the TOOB I bought to have some mini sized dines!
Kirstylee
August 8, 2013 at 7:21 pmI love how you set this up. My toddler has a really hard time playing independently unless I am in the room with him. As long as he can see me, he will play by himself forever. If I try to leave to do laundry or put things away though, it’s all over. 😉 I really want to try a table like this with him. I bet he would love it!
littlebins
August 9, 2013 at 1:57 amAwesome let me know how it works! I am definitely making more of these tables!
Sharla
August 11, 2013 at 2:58 amThis is so full of great ideas, especially for independent hands-on learning. I am always so inspired by your ideas and am already trying to think of how I could incorporate the idea of a discovery table into some of our planned unit studies for this year.
Thanks for linking up with the Tender Moments with Toddlers & Preschoolers Blog Hop!
Tina @Mamas Like Me
August 11, 2013 at 11:01 pmThis looks like so much fun! Pinning for our Dinosaur Theme this year 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Emma
August 13, 2013 at 9:23 amI love your discovery tables! There is so much to do that your son will be able to go back again and again and still find something new. Awesome!
Carrie
August 16, 2013 at 12:42 pmSome great activities!! Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!
Jessica De Kok
October 20, 2014 at 1:19 pmWhere did you find the dinosaur bones? I’ve been looking and can’t seem to find any.
littlebins
November 1, 2014 at 2:13 amYou know they were part of a thrift store dinosaur building kit so any plastic model kit would work and bonus if you build it too!