G3’s second request for her own themed “camp” day was dinosaurs! I was excited for this one as, while it’s a repeat theme from the summer, I could make it 100% geared towards her preschool level skills and interests. Once again, we started off with a big coloring page featuring the letter “D.” Giving her this sort of activity allowed me to run around and gather the last few supplies on my list so everything was ready to go for the rest of our planned activities!

She began asking about some of the activities we’d done over the summer, particularly the dino dig where I had baked figurines into salt dough. I hope I didn’t disappoint her too terribly much when I told her that unfortunately, our dinosaur friends had gotten stuck in icebergs instead! She was stoked, and spent a great deal of time working on freeing them - even making sure to get their heads out first “so they can breathe!” This was something that we left set up and returned to a few times throughout the morning. When G5 came home from kindy in the late morning, she made quick work of the remaining ice.

I grabbed a few letters from her wooden letter puzzle and buried them in this sandy sort of sensory box (not sure what it is - kids of a mix of normal sand and kinetic sand in texture). She used a shovel and rake tool and a paintbrush to unearth them, and then we worked on identifying the letters to figure out what our fossilized word was.

Would you believe our silly dinosaurs were playing tag and ran smack into a spider’s web? Of course we had to help them out and get all the webs off! We worked together on this one as G3 started losing interest at the more challenging points, but we did manage to rescue all four dinos in the end.

A little 1:1 counting practice was up next. I happen to own a hole punch that works with an amazingly small amount of pressure, which is perfect for little hands. I wish I knew where I got it to recommend, but I honestly have no idea where it came from! Anyways, I had cut out some dinosaur eggs and written a number on them, and G3 punched that many holes.

I was pretty proud of my board game creation! Our dinosaurs had to get away from the erupting volcano to safety, but they could only move if they could identify the letter on the space. I think we allowed each dinosaur a few tries - and my little dimetrodon needed all the help he could get! G3 took great pride in telling my dino when he was wrong and had to stay back until next turn. She’s come a long way in her letter identification over the last 2 weeks!

After G5 got home from kindy and rescued our dinos still stick in ice, we finished up dino day with one final activity. I have a collection of felt shapes that I brought in, and we used them to try to put together pictures of dinosaurs. It was met with medium enthusiasm and low-medium success as a product-driven activity, but the girls both enjoyed undirected free play with the shapes to create whatever they wanted, so it was overall a win.