A dinosaur theme is a sure fire way to capture little one’s interest and curiosity. Just talking about dinosaurs with toddlers is so much fun! Our week was filled with names to learn, questions to answer and hands on activities to try. Here were our plans for Dinosaur Week: And here are the details of […]

Cute free dinosaur printables for your upcoming dinosaur theme. These dinosaur preschool worksheets include lots of activities for kids.

Are you looking for a way to simplify your therapy planning? Do you need a resource that seamlessly adapts to mixed groups, individual sessions, or social skills groups? This free printable barrier games bundle is just what you need! Barrier games are designed to elevate speaking and listening skills in speech therapy, ESL classes, special education, and beyond. Barrier games address a common challenge many SLPs face: finding adaptable materials that cater to diverse learning needs and objectives. Use this flexible therapy tool to work on many language goals in an engaging, interactive way! They work exceptionally well for mixed groups, to generalize concepts, and social skills groups! Target: expressive skills (giving directions), receptive skills (following directions), social skills, basic concepts, vocabulary, categorization, sentence formation, and storytelling. Read more about barrier games: Why You Should Be Using Barrier Games in Speech Therapy > More barrier games > Interested in digital barrier games? > Get ALL barrier games with the BUNDLE. ✅ WHAT’S INCLUDED: Scene with 12 separate pieces List of directions to give with each scene (targeting concepts below) ✅ TARGET: Vocabulary: e.g. Put the bone on the volcano. Adjectives: e.g. colors, size, shapes Spatial concepts: e.g. on, in, under, below, next to, between Following multi-step directions Sequential directions: e.g. Before you put the girl in the cave, put the drumstick on top of the cave. Social skills: e.g. Making eye contact to give/receive instructions, asking questions to clarify instructions HOW TO PLAY: Laminate the scenes and pieces for each scene. Give everyone playing a scene and set of pieces. Set up a barrier between players (e.g. file folder). One person (clinician or student) arranges all their pieces on the scene and then gives directions to other player(s) on where to place the items. The purpose of the game is to have matching scenes at the end. You can put sticky tack on each piece so it will stick to the scene - or simply just place on the scene. Barrier games are also commonly played on a magnetic surface. You can play on cookie sheets and place pieces on a thin, sticky magnet if you wish. ➜ Want to streamline therapy planning? ➜ Want to utilize more open-ended materials that can be used to work on multiple goal areas? ➜ Need resources for mixed groups, individual sessions, or social skills groups? This product is free - I would appreciate it if you took the time to leave a rating with feedback. Thank you! _______________________________________ ➡️ LET’S CONNECT! Newsletter • Blog • Instagram • Facebook • Pinterest _______________________________________ Customer Tips CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW ME- Be the first to know about freebies, sales, and new products. Get credits to use for future Teachers Pay Teachers purchases. Visit the My Purchases Page and click the leave a review button. Your account will be credited for future purchases.  Having difficulty with a file? Visit the FAQs section, submit a help ticket, or ask a question on the Q& A tab before leaving feedback. ___________________________________ Copyright © Allison Fors, Inc. All rights reserved by author. Permission to copy for individual use only. Please purchase additional licenses if you intend to share this resource with others. Copying any part of this product and placing it on the Internet is forbidden.

The Preschool and Kindergarten Dinosaur Worksheet Pack is available for FREE on the blog! Includes tracing, bigger/smaller comparisons, craft ideas, and crosswords!

Preschool songs, action songs for kids & fun pre school circle time music listed by learning topic for parents & teachers of preschoolers.

THE BLOG FEATURED POSTS The views expressed in this blog are my own and are intended to inspire other speech-language pathologists in their own practice. If you are a parent, teacher or other educator, these ideas are not intended to take the place of treatment by a certified clinician. Read full disclaimer here.

Shortly after my boy fell in love with dinosaurs, he started associating them with volcanoes. It really seemed like every book he looked at combined them both when trying to illustrate one. Now last year, his focus was really onto the Stegosaurus and Triceratops but this year, it started shifting a bit. Curiosity had grown and he just had to know a little bit more about these mountains of fire standing in Argentinosaurus's background. Of course this unit was entirely unplanned but these can also turn out to be the most fun as we all know. Even younger sister Zahavah, a mere toddler, squealed at the many demonstrations she saw and demanded to take part into most crafts. Here I share with you all today, some of "stuff and fluff" we went through during our study of volcanoes. Enjoy! Volcano or Mountain? What is a Volcano? After gathering some thoughts, my son's final answer was that volcanoes were mountains shaped like a cone spitting out lava. From then on, we discussed whether some volcanoes sometimes stopped spewing lava and simply looked like mountains. To this he agreed. But were all mountains volcanoes then? My son was pretty sure they weren't. With a set of pictures printed from the Internet, he went on to sort volcanoes from mountains. Mount Kilimanjaro was the only one mistaken for a mountain (who can blame him?). Once this work was finished, I explained that a volcano really is only a crack into the Earth's surface; a crack that allows magma to come through. Paricutin is Born - A Read & Measure Story But just how do volcanoes grow? They are born from an opening into the Earth's crust but how fast do they grow and how do they build up from a simple fissure? For this, we read an eyewitness's account of a volcano birth. My son was impressed to hear that someone had seen with their eyes a volcano start from a crack and then went on to grow right then and there. He loved hearing about the smells and noises that came with the birth of Paricutin. Once we finished reading Dioniso Pulido's story, we used a measuring tape to see how much the volcano had grown in front of that man and then, well, the tape wasn't long enough to cover for even the next 24 hours! :) Birth & Growth of a Volcano Now that we knew how Paricutin had grown from a crack to a big cinder cone volcano, it was time to learn more as to what exactly made it grow... Per an idea seen on I.Science Mate, I used a cereal cardboard box to pre-make two volcanoes: a well-known stratovolcano and a simple fissure (poked a hole in the cardboard) aka a volcano being born. With some shaving cream, I demonstrated how the magma came to the surface of the Earth through the crack (hole poked, pushing cream through from underneath). As the cream accumulated, our newly born volcano started to grow and to build up. The "lava" was piling up. We did not really enter the details but I did mention the occurrence of lava bombs, ash, tephra and such coming out as well. As for the stratovolcano, well, I chose to demonstrate with that one as well to show that even big volcanoes will keep building up and will only get bigger as they erupt time after time. I also explained the role gas played into the expelling of the magma. After all, volcanoes do stop erupting at some point (well, most of them do at least...) Types of Volcanoes and Playdough Volcanoes Having looked at different pictures of volcanoes, my son was well aware that not all volcanoes looked alike. It was time to talk about the three main types of volcanoes. We knew how they were born, we knew what made them grow but we did not know why they grew differently. Did it have anything to do with their eruption style? Gas levels? Magma viscosity? Yes indeed! With some logic, we were able to determine that shield volcanoes were gentle "erupters" since they did not have the "traditional cone shape" and that their lava must have been very runny to spread so far and create such long and large volcanoes. On the opposite spectrum, a stratovolcano had to be explosive and shoot up in the air to produce such a cone. The magma also had to be thick and sticky to stay up on the "cone mountain". But what about a cinder cone? An "in betweener"? Sort of. A bit explosive...Actually kind of runny lava. Main difference? Gas levels! Once we sorted it all, the major hands-on fun began: making all three types of volcanoes using play dough and if desired...pipe cleaners for eruptions! Learn more about the three types of volcanoes here and here. Lava Viscosity Demonstration Is mama making a mess? Oh did the kids love this one! All this food making a mess on the floor! It certainly triggered a lot of laughing...and it was all in the name of science. Earlier in the week we had talked about magma being of different thickness and lava traveling at different speeds, thus participating in the creation of various shapes of volcanoes. For this demonstration, I gathered, 5 liquids (all representing lava), a thick sheet of paper (usually for fingerpainting) and a huge plastic tray (usually for fingerpainting as well but I turned it around and taped the sheet to it) which I inclined and put a taped mark on the floor in case it shifted during the demo. One after the other, the substances were poured from the same spot on top of the sheet at about the same speed. Which was the fastest "lava"? Which was the slowest? Was it the one you thought prior to the experiment? Some actual lava is sticky and runny like honey apparently. Wouldn't want to be around that volcano when it erupts but I'd run faster if it were a "milky" eruption! Substances used (all in the same quantity!): Honey Olive Oil Ketchup Corn Syrup Milk Once more looking at the shapes of our volcanoes, it seemed like shield volcanoes could very well fit the "milk" kind of lava...Spreading kind, the kind that creates islands! :) 3D Volcano Craft Although it will take you several hours/days to complete this volcano craft (depending on your drying time), it is, as you can see, well worth it. The process is very hands on and enjoyable for children and the product is just as great. Start with a thick sheet of paper or even a cardboard. Have your child draw a basic cone shape volcano or any other volcano shape he/she'd like for that matter. Once that is done, time to cut in 4 pieces several sheets of toilet paper. These will then be scrunched into little balls and dipped into slightly watered-down liquid glue to finally be pressed into the drawn volcano shape. When everything is dry, more of that glue should be painted over the volcano so that later on, the paint can be spread easily. When everything is dry, the sky can be painted (we used watercolors) and finally, the volcano itself (we used dark grey tempera). When all is dry, "lava" can be added using Q-tips and red-orange tempera paint. Let dry again and apply (for fun and extra effect) some red and gold glitter glue. The craft seen above was entirely made by my 5.5 year old. My 3 year old made hers as well and hers was just as nice. She didn't paint the sky entirely (got tired) but thoroughly loved every minute of the volcano craft creation. Original idea: Our Worldwide Classroom. Are Volcano Eruptions a Good Thing or Not? Needless to say to a child who loves volcanoes, volcanoes are spectacular! Of course, Adrian being 5, he also knows that volcanoes come with their share of problems. The goal of this activity was for Adrian to sort through 8 effects of volcanoes and decide whether it was a positive or negative effect. Not problems with the sorting whatsoever, even if some were more obvious than others. Parts of a Volcano - 3 part cards Haven't done 3 part cards in a while it seems. Couldn't resist this freebie from The Helpful Garden though. It helped reinforced the concept of volcano vent, crater, magma chamber and other terms we used during the unit so I was happy when I found them! :) Looking for more volcano activities? Of course you are! Part 2 of this volcano unit should be published soon! :) * * * Enjoying What You're Reading? Follow Sorting Sprinkles on Facebook or Sign Up to be Notified When New Posts Are Out! * * * This week, I'm happily linking up to Montessori Monday, The Kids Co-Op, Show-and-Share Saturday, Link & Learn, TGIF, Share it Saturday, Mom's Library, The Sunday Showcase, Preschool Corner &5K, We Made That.

Long list of free Montessori materials found online; perfect resource for classroom teachers and homeschoolers; free materials for a variety of levels, especially preschoolers through early elementary!

Did you know that you can make your own dinosaur dig excavation activity? All you need is two household ingredients and a few sunny days. It couldn't be easier! So if you are looking for a simple dinosaur activity to do during a dinosaur theme or just for fun with the kids, this dino dig excavation is perfect for you!

Only $2.40 a book!   The case includes 120 books! They were written primarily for toddlers and preschool children who are learning to manage their own behavior.  Little Dino has many sharp teeth and uses them to bite objects and other dinosaurs. He must learn to use them in the right way.

Play, create and learn with these selection of family themed activities, crafts and ideas for preschoolers.

songs fingerplays dinosaurs 13 - Read more about fingerplays, dinosaurs and preschool.

Hi friends! Today I want to share with you our dinosaur inquiry from the past few months! We originally had some dinosaur wonders on our February wonder chart, so we went back to those questions and I also invited students share more questions they had about dinosaurs. Here is what they came up with initially: Why did the dinosaurs go extinct? How did dinosaurs go extinct? Is it true that the dinosaurs died because it go too cold? Back then, were the dinosaurs real or was it just a story? What do dinosaurs eat? Where did dinosaurs live? Did dinosaurs live in caves? Why do dinosaurs have tails? Why did dinosaurs run? What did dinosaurs sound like? Why did dinosaurs make loud noises? They weren't brainstormed in that order, but I grouped them like that so we could look at questions that were similar consecutively. For our lessons, we first started by reading the book "What are dinosaurs?" by Bobbie Kalman. In this book we learned that dinosaurs were real but lived long ago and that no dinosaurs are alive today. After we learned this information, I had the girl who originally asked the question "Back then, were the dinosaurs real or was it just a story?" come to the teacher table during centre time and record the sentence "Dinosaurs were real but they lived long ago. There are no dinosaurs alive today." It's hard to see but it's the writing at the bottom left corner on the bulletin board! Here are two centres I put out early on in our dinosaur inquiry. First, I bought this egg at Dollarama and posed the question "What do you think will hatch out of the egg?" and had students observe and write their predictions. They loved looking for changes, especially after seeing a few cracks develop! After it hatched (it was a triceratops inside) we talked about how all dinosaurs hatch from eggs. Another centre we set out early on was this dinosaur provocation. This centre lets the students freely explore different dinosaur items and also record their observations and questions about dinosaurs. I bought the dinosaurs from Michaels. You can get the tracing/matching cards you see in the picture for FREE by clicking here on the image below: The next day, we continued to read the book "What are dinosaurs?" by Bobbie Kalman learned that dinosaurs eat plants and meat. We learned the words carnivore and herbivore. After the lesson we prepped for our next lesson by making the titles "What do dinosaurs eat?", "plants" and "meat". Then I made 2 eggs and printed the herbivore and carnivore signs. I also printed the herbivore and carnivores that were in "What are dinosaurs?" and "First Facts: Dinosaurs" by DK Publishing (that I planned to read the next day). The next day, we put the chart pieces up on the whiteboard and read the pages about what dinosaurs eat in "First Facts: Dinosaurs" by DK Publishing. As we read the book, we sorted the dinosaur cards on to the correct egg. We also went back to the "What are dinosaurs?" book and re-read the pages that had information on herbivores and carnivores ands sorted the corresponding dinosaurs on those pages as well on to the egg. Here is the finished chart: (this activity and the map activity below was inspired by @playexplorelearn on Instagram!) The next morning, I set out this invitation to sort dinosaurs based on what they eat. I left out the two books we read to make our chart the previous day as a resource and our completed chart was also on the bulletin board for them to reference! Next, we looked at the question "Why and how did dinosaurs go extinct?" First, we watched the video "Where did the dinosaurs go?" by Pink Fong on YouTube. We watched the video twice and then the students recalled the steps to me about how the dinosaurs went extinct. I wrote each step on a different whiteboard. Then at centre time, students volunteered to record the steps and draw a corresponding picture (if they wanted to) so that we could display the steps on our bulletin board. Next we explored the question "Where did dinosaurs live?" We read pages from "Dino Encyclopedia" (I can't remember the author, sorry!) and "You Can Be a Palentologist!" by Scott D. Sampson to learn that dinosaurs only lived on land (those other creatures that flew or lived in the water were flying reptiles or ocean reptiles that lived at the same time as dinosaurs! Who knew!) but they lived on every continent. I drew up a big map on poster paper and told them that we will be painting it together and then adding dinosaur stickers to show our new learning. First, students were invited to show their new learning about the world map by painting one. If they were able to paint the map correctly (green for land, blue for ocean) then they were invited to come and paint on the large collaborative map. We projected a large world map on the projector so that students could use that as a reference when painting. Here is some of my girls adding to our collaborative map! After we painted the map, we also made labels for the continents, the title and the writing piece to show our new learning. The next day, we glued the continent labels as a class and also added the dinosaur stickers whole group. And here is the completed map and corresponding title/writing: I got the stickers we used for the collaborative map at Michaels. The next day, I also let the students add mini dinosaur stickers to their original maps! I bought the mini stickers at Walmart. I started with a limit of 10 but I realized not everyone made a map so increased the limit to 15. These tiny stickers are great for fine motor development! Here is a sample of a finished map! I had some requests to share the printable for this activity so you can click here or on the image below to download it for free! Next we investigated the question "What did dinosaurs sounds like?" We watched these two videos: and we learned that scientists think dinosaurs did not roar like they do in movies like Jurassic Park. Instead they think they made a hissing noise. Then the girl who originally asked the question came to the teacher table at centre time and wrote her new learning to display on our bulletin board. It's hard to see but it's the top right writing piece in the picture below: Another centre I put out was this story making centre! Students were invited to make a dinosaur story with play dough and loose parts and use ChatterPix to record it. They LOVED this activity! On the last day, I wrote some of the remaining questions on chart paper (Did dinosaurs live in caves? Why do dinosaurs have tails? Why do dinosaurs run?) and we used google and our own inferencing to come up with the answers. I don't have a picture of this... sorry! To consolidate our learning, we also made these non-fiction dinosaur books! This was a great guided group for my higher writers. First we made our cover page and talked about titles, authors and illustrators. Then we learned about table of contents and how it helps us find information in a non-fiction book. We wrote our learning on each page, added a title and went back and added each new topic to our table of contents. It took about a week to complete but it was worth the time! Next time I think I'll start with less pages in the book though, especially for our first book! Here are some other books in case you are interested in looking! They used our bulletin boards as a reference when thinking of facts to include in their books which made our bulletin board more interactive than usual which I loved! If you are looking for these non-fiction book making printables, you can find them in my "Inquiry Writing Templates for Kindergarten" pack on TPT. You can click here or on the image below to see what else is included! Here is the finished bulletin board again: We had some amazing questions come up during our dinosaur inquiry (see below). We recorded them but the kids were losing steam with this inquiry and our caterpillars arrived so we switched gears without exploring these questions. I just wanted to share that because it's ok to not explore every question! Don't beat yourself up if you can't find the time! We can only do what we have time for :) That's it for our dinosaur inquiry! I hope this post gave you some ideas if your students have similar wonderings or are interested in dinosaurs too! - Yukari

I'm branching away from the "Montessori" printables for a moment (because they don't like "cartoon" images) a...

Learn with real wiggly worms in the classroom this spring! Practice math and science skills during this sensory activity while encouraging new experiences.

Dinosaur Unit 3 with Free Printables

Can you figure out how the Triceratops got his name? Study this Triceratops fact sheet and see if you can guess.

7 days of exploring volcanos with toddlers and preschoolers - activities for each day of the week, including printable planner

Simple hands-on activity for kids to sort dinosaurs into herbivores and carnivores based on their features and characteristics. Introduce classification and sorting for science and maths with this Dinosaur Themed Activity.

Roundup with lots of resources for Montessori land, air, and water activities for preschoolers; perfect for classroom or home.

I designed this pteranodon mobile for my dino-kid a few months ago and after he got over the fact that I didn't make a bigger variety of pterosaurs ("It's a flock of pteranodons," I said, "They stick together." I didn't really know, but it seemed like a good answer out.) he wanted to know where the fish they were diving for were. So we made some of them too and stuck them on the ends. This is really more of a grown-up craft but my tyrant had a good time telling me what's what and how to do MY design. I'm sure yours will too and then in the end you'll have a great decoration for his room. Or her room. Not all tyrannical dino-kids are boys. What You Need: A few sheets of colored card stock the template a couple yards of string a paper plate (it's what I had but you could stick two dowels in a cross formation for the top.) a hole punch glue or tape for reinforcement The template: What You Do: Using the template, cut out pieces for 6 Big Pteranodons (A) and 3 Little Ones. (Or however many you want.) And 3 Fish. Piece the pteranodons together by sticking the cut slit of the wings into the cut slit of the body. The pieces will be perpendicular. Voila. I strengthened and made them more together by gluing a piece of cardstock on each side of the body, above and under each wing but you could do tape. Decide your order of pteranodons. 2 big ones, 1 little one and a fish on the end of each. Through all the pteranodons, punch out two holes, one on the top of the body, one at the bottom. Cut strings, tie one to the top of the pteranodon, one to the bottom, tie the next guy onto that string. Put a string on his bottom. Tie on the last guy. Tie another string to him, tie on his fish. Do this with your other pteranodons, making three strings of pterosaurs and fish. Make your strings varying lengths so they're not all bumping into each other, but keep them relatively similar so you don't upset the balance. I'm sure you could figure out the math to make it perfect, but I sure didn't. On your paper plate, punch two holes near the center of the plate and tie a piece of string through, looping it. That's your hanger. Now, put three sets of 2 holes equidistant around, so that the two holes are about .25-.5" apart. Your three strings of pteranodons are going to get tied through these holes. Do it, tie them, I dare you. Done. Show it to your dino-kid and listen patiently while he tells you what you did wrong and then teach him about the phrase "Artistic License." Now if you're doing the dowels, you'll have to make a fourth string of pteranodons, so happy cutting!

Next week we will begin our unit on dinosaurs and I made this cute venn diagram to go along with it. You can grab it from my TPT store by clicking HERE.

Dinosaur lessons pair up great with Science, especially “living things” lessons. I usually bring in this theme at the end of April and after Easter, since dinosaurs came from eggs. Here…

Dinosaurs are fun! I am always on a campaign to bring more fun to early childhood. I am very familiar with the amount of curriculum and expectations that govern the time young children spend at sc…

I already wrote about this new product but I wanted to share how important it is for students to sing in order to improve literacy skills. This fun collection of songs can help diverse learners improve reading skills because it has music, drama, and actions that will help kids connect to the material. It will […]

I only have 2 1/2 days left! Woohoo! My class has been okay so far. I mean I could tell they were anxious for summer, but today.... oh brother! They couldn't sit long, couldn't focus long, and needed to MOVE! Good thing we were learning about dinosaurs today. I did something very different (for me, that is) and set up the last 10 days to focus on different themes. So today and tomorrow are dinosaurs and Wednesday/Thursday is Summer. We've done space, Chris Van Allsburg (one of my all-time favorite kids authors), penguins, and "Cool Kids." It's been fun. Over the weekend I made up a dinosaur measuring activity I thought I'd share. You can grab the freebie by clicking on the first picture. I set up 4 stations (all the same) with the 6 "length" cards and 4 other stations with the 6 "height" cards. Kids worked with a partner, measured each dinosaur and recorded their measurement on the recording sheet. When everyone was done, they switched to do the other station. It worked out great and they kids had fun. Only one little guy had trouble measuring. He just couldn't get the hang of putting the beginning of the ruler on one line. He just laid the ruler wherever and wrote the measurement. After showing him many times, he finally got it. Yippee! After school I went to visit my friend Kara. If you read my post over the weekend, you read about her unfortunate situation. I thought I'd have to try not to cry, but it was actually nice, pleasant visit and I didn't cry at all- yeah for me! It was wonderful to see her what was probably one last time. Even though it doesn't change the sadness at all, I'm focusing on the positive part of our visit and the time I've known her and her wonderful family. And as for losing our bunny, we feel the void but it's getting better. Thank for you all your sweet comments. Now on to my currently...  Chrissy