Dinosaur Fun!

At least a before this theme you will want to make dinosaur eggs! They smell fantastic and the kids were fascinated with them! You will need plastic dinosaurs and

1 cup flour
1 cup coffee grounds (I ask local quick stop to save used ones)
1/2 c salt
1/4 c sand
3/4 c water

And drying time (1 week or so). I did a triple batch and it was enough to make 2 eggs to cover a 6" dinosaur. I put them in the sandbox for the kids to discover on their own and would also work great in an indoor sand table!

 A basic salt dough and I cut out some dinosaur foot prints and letters for their first name

 Sensory fun.....a dinosaur bath and dinosaurs in shaving cream. I also put dinosaurs in the sandbox for the week

 I used a white crayon and my dinosaur rubbing plate for a fun dinosaur art exploration. Watercolors make the dinosaurs magically appear!

One of our favorite books to read. We also stomped, roared and walked like we thought dinosaurs might be like.

Dinosaurs with playdough is always a favorite to make tracks with!

Dinosaur lacing 

 and a dinosaur lunch!

Fall, Apples and Pumpkins Fun

Pumpkin Exploration

What does it look like? Smell like? Feel like? Taste like?

And after a bit they were touching it with their hands :)

 Then we made a what does the inside of a pumpkin look like and added colored spaghetti and seeds from the pumpkin.

Pumpkin Jack is a great book to read and follow the process. We did this for a whole year

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What does your Pumpkin Jack look like?

Friendship Applesauce:
Even though all the apples look different, they are great together!
They loved cutting up and mashing the apples for snack

More cooking fun! I cut circles out of pie crust and we made apple pie pockets. I added a letter for their first names and they made enough to eat one at snack, and to take one home.

Warm apple cider in an apple cup

Apple patterns and number games.

 Pick a number and then go and find that many apples

Apple Prints

 Sunflowers

 How many apples tall are you?

 What does the inside of an apple look like?

 Fall watercolors on napkins and then cut out into leaf shapes (also works on coffee filters)

 We went on a leaf hunt and then I used cookie cutters to cut letters out for an alphabet game

 Simple tree with some clear contact paper and buckets of leaves

Zoo Fun

 

We started our zoo theme today with the Giraffe :)

We learned that giraffes have long necks, legs and tongues.

We traced my foot and cut out a long neck and then used our fingers to create the spots they have

Then we took a big piece of paper and measured out 18" as that is how long a giraffe tongue is. It's long to help them get the leaves off the trees.

 

We walked around and practiced how high of things we could reach with our long tongues

Then we tied kale chip to a string and tried to get it with our tongues (and no hands). It wasn't very easy so we brainstormed how a long tongue would help us "grab" the leaves.
Then we watched a youtube clip of giraffe tongues and got to see how they use their tongues and their tongues are not red/pink like our tongues.

 Fun and easy art project. White "horse" cut out. Dip a small ball in black paint and roll stripes on. I had 20 month olds who sat and this this forever, just sliding the tub back and forth watching the stripes go on and ball roll around!

Alligator Ring Toss fun!

 Paper plate monkey art!

 Monkey treats! Banana's with peanut butter spread on them and rolled in rice crispies :)

We had zoo animals in the sand box and inside where we had zoo's made from blocks and whatever we could find!

Zoo Keepers! I set the animals all around the house and we would pick a food, and find what animal eats that food. The kids absolutely LOVED this!

Feeding the animals