After several students in our class expressed interest in learning about dinosaurs, I quickly started searching for dinosaur centers that my students would love. As we started our unit, I quickly found out that many 3-6 year old know and can pronounce the names of many dinosaurs, better then I can. Below I’m sharing a collection of over 30 Best Dinosaur Activities for Kids.
Some of the activities can be done independently by kids, others work well as a center with a small group and an educator. They are all activities that my students, and my own kids at home, loved and were engaged in as they learned about dinosaurs.
As you scroll through for ideas, some activities allow you to click for more information, others are simply an image to show the activity. Let the image inspire you to create something in your own classroom.
Dinosaur Activities for Kids
A great way to kick off a Dinosaur unit with a group of dino loving kids is with a Dinosaur Scavenger hunt. This free printable hunt can be printed and set up in minutes around a school.
The riddles include dinosaur fun facts and then a clue to somewhere in a school. Kids explore, and learn!
Dinosaur Activities – Sensory Play
I bought a large plastic storage bin that I use everyday in kindergarten. At first I filled with with random objects, and didn’t intend for it to be so popular. Now I plan something special in the sensory bin each week for center time. It is always a favorite for all kids.
If you have a proper sensory bin, make sure to utilize it during play. It’s sure to be a hit!
The first sensory bin for our dinosaur activities for kids, included about an inch or two of dirt on the bottom. The add plastic dinosaur figures, wood slices, shovels, and any other dinosaur related objects that you have on hand, like eggs and leaves.
The second dinosaur sensory bin uses sand on the bottom. After you’ve added the sand, I added a few bowls with blue jewels and water. (I added a few drops of food coloring to the water to make it blue.) I then added stones, dinosaurs, wooden trees, leaves and small strainers. The kids can move the dinosaurs around the small land, take a drink and interact with their peers and their dinosaurs.
The third sensory bin, is my favorite! Use different colors of playdough and smooth it out along the bottom of the bin. Add dinosaurs and other small toys to the bin like gems. Children will love pressing their dinosaurs into the dough and creating foot prints!
Paleontologist Dig
The next sensory bin, we used several small bins. Use hot glue to glue bones to the bottom of the bin. Next add sand on top of the bones. Give children paint brushes to brush off the sand and feel a little bit what it would be to be an paleontologist.
After we were finished with this center, I was able to snap the bones off of the bottom despite the hot glue.
Learn about dinosaurs and eruptions with this Volcano sensory bin. It’s a fantastic way to teach your class about volcanoes. Use rice and chick peas for a unique sensory bin experience.
This activity idea mixes a bit of art and sensory. Create your own fossils with the instructions and DIY recipe for beautiful fossils. Then use your fossils for little ones to undercover the fossils in the sand.
Preschoolers and kindergarten kids love playdough. It’s a great sensory activity for them to create and play with. I was able to get some 3D cookie cutters that were shaped like dinosaurs, created from a 3D printer, from 3Dclassroom.ca
Just providing the cookie cutters and playdough would be enough for kids to happily play, but try adding googly eyes and other craft materials for kids to add extra details to their dinos!
Dinosaur Activities for Kids – Fine Motor Play
Pretend to be a hungry dinosaur! Use colorful cereal for children to pick up and sort. However, they can’t use their hands. Small claw clips mimic dinosaur teeth and the cereal must be picked up using the ‘teeth’.
Once they pick up a piece of cereal, they have to set it on the tray with the other pieces of the same color. This is a great activity for fine motor skills as well as sorting.
Dinosaur Centers – Math
Hands-on centers are a great way to teach children math skills. They learn as they play and tend to be very engaged in the activity.
Use several dinosaur figures, all of different sizes and heights. Provide small wooden blocks. Children then build a stack of blocks the same height as each dinosaur. Discuss which dinosaur was the tallest. How many blocks tall it was etc.
This center was one of the most popular from my classroom. I was very happy to see how many children gravitated to this center and were excited to practice their number skills.
This is the benefit from hands-on play. Children learn because they are engaged and excited to do the activity. I used plastic Easter eggs that snap together. The eggs I found were speckled so they resembled dinosaur eggs, which was perfect.
Place each number from 0-20 onto a piece of paper, or other manipulative that you can write on. Place the number into an egg and close the egg.
Children crack open an egg, get a number and match it to the volcano number on the table.
If you have magnetic tiles in your classroom, use them for this activity! We used this center as a math activity, but also a STEM challenge. Children create a stack of the tiles to measure the height of the dinosaur figure.
Children were then challenged to create a home for the dinosaur by building around it and creating an enclosure.
Printable Ten Frame
Easy to use Dinosaur addition ten Frame cards. You have an addition equation and then a ten frame with part of the equation and then fill in the rest of the equation. A fun dinosaur math center for kids.
This activity invites children to arrange numbers on the back of a muffin tin and have a dinosaur walk on them in number order.
Print the shapes that feature different dinosaurs. If you have small dinosaur figures children can use them to place on the dinosaurs to create each shape.
Try a math+puzzle activity. Print the pages and cut them into strips. Children can then put them together by putting the numbers in order to create a dinosaur picture.
Dinosaur Activities for Kids – Science
Beyond learning about dinosaurs and creatures that roamed the earth, hands-on science experiments are always fun for kids. Below are a few fizzing and frozen science experiments.
These fizzy dinosaur eggs are so much fun! Kids will love learning about science and finding the dinosaurs inside these eggs.
Grab some playdough for children to quickly and easily create fossils. Try using dinosaur figures to create footprints and other dinosaur related materials to create a imprint.
I can’t wait to try this with my group! Freeze several small dinosaurs into ice. Provide water, or even salt water, for children to work to get the dinosaur freed.
Hatch dinosaurs by watching them fizz! This is a classic experiment that is easy to set up and kids are sure to love. It also serves as a great introduction to a chemical reaction.
Dinosaur Centers – Language
We used the printable number cards for a similar activity, and it was such a popular center, that I used the same idea to create another activity, but this time, children matched letters.
Print each letter (upper case or lower case) onto a piece of paper or small manipulative. Children open each egg and match the letter from the egg to the letter card taped to the table.
Using a pocket chart, print the upper case and lower case dinosaur themed letters. Children are challenged to match each letter.
Make a Dinosaur Letter D Craft with this fun printable.
This editable dinosaur board game is a fun way to work on a variety of skills! Use it for reading practice, letter identification, letter sounds, math facts and more!
While the dinosaur mat may seem like just play, it can also be used to label different dinosaurs to work in some science as well as language arts. Write the names of various species or even words like volcano, river, etc. on small pieces of paper and have your child place them next to their match.
This fun sensory activity is hands-on way for your kids to practice identifying and tracing letters.
Practice identifying capital and lowercase letters with this dinosaur-themed activity.
A dinosaur ABC learning center works on finding the letters and covering or tracing the letters with uppercase and lowercase letters.
Small World Play
If you don’t include small world play in your classroom, this DIY small world play mat is the perfect place to start. I created this mat using felt and hot glue. We have been able to transform the mat into countless themed centers over the years.
Include a few small sections, like a nest, cave and water to encourage imaginative play. Add dinosaur figures and toys to create a magical world.
Arts and Crafts
Kids love to paint! How cute would a dinosaur footprint art piece be? Compare the different footprints as children create.
This beautiful scratch art is a great art project and fun for children to scratch and create their own dinosaur in class.
Make 12 species of dinosaurs from paper plates with this set of printable glue on shapes. Super easy and lots of fun!
Have fun piecing together the Dinosaur puzzles.
Use the sun and dinosaur toys to make this dinosaur silhouette art. It’s a fun way to talk about shadows and angles with young kids. If you try this in the classroom, you can use a flashlight to mimic the sun’s shadow inside.
Sock puppets are another great dinosaur themed activity for children to create. Use it as a final culminating activity in your dinosaur unit. This was children can create something that they can take home and use for years.
Have children start by creating their dinosaur on the “Design a Dinosaur” hand puppet. This is a free printable available below.
Once designed, children can start creating. Cut pieces to create spikes on the dinosaurs back, sharp teeth and maybe even wings! You’ll be amazing at what they can come up with!
Free Printable
Click to download the free printable planning template for the dinosaur sock puppet!
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