Dinosaurs in Kindergarten – Hopping into Kindergarten

I’ve always had many kindergarteners excited about dinosaurs, but one year I had an especially big dinosaur fan and I knew I wanted to incorporate dinos into their own special unit to really get this particular learner excited about all things school. Over the years it grew as I created more fun dino resources that bring that extra excitement to literacy and math activities! It’s always been a hit and such a fun unit to teach.

Close-up Shot of a Person Playing Dinosaur Toys

One fun way to incorporate dinosaurs into literacy is with easy dinosaur printable books. There are many to choose from online, and I created two myself that focused on different specific skills. In “I See Dinosaurs”, students can practice writing in the sight word “see” while naming all different types of dinosaurs. In “My Dinosaur Fact Book”, students are exposed to a variety of sentences focusing on more sight words and fun facts. Both books are always a hit with kindergarteners (and pre-K students too!) and I’ll link them below if you want to check them out.

I See Dinosaurs featuring predictable text and sight word practice. Options to fill in the missing sight word.

My Dinosaur Fact Book offers more sight words and longer sentences.

In addition to reading dinosaur printable books, of course we read all the fun dinosaur read-aloud books, too! I rounded up some fun kindergarten dinosaur books below.

How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends? is one option, but check out the whole series of How Do Dinosaurs? books for lots of fun with dinos.

This is a fun push/pull/lift book that was a favorite among my classes year after year!

Another fun dinosaur book that your students can participate in the movements with!

Okay, so you’ve introduced lots of dinosaur read-alouds and individual printable books. What else? My students always LOVE writing the room, where they get to use real clipboards and walk around the room to discover hidden words. Very scientist-y, no? This write-the-room has eight mostly shorter words for your kindergarteners to find and write, plus a writing extension and differentiated version included.

I love to find activities that are hands-on, so I had a blast with this Dinosaur Egg Cracking activity (students use hold punchers to practice syllables while “cracking” eggs). I also pull out the magnifying glasses for students to search and find sight words in this Dinosaur Search and Find activity.

Dinosaurs aren’t limited to literacy, of course, and kindergarteners love Roll and Build math games. The concept is simple and once they understand how the game works, they can play it with all kinds of themes. Students roll a dice and build a tower that number tall to cover up a number on the game board, then repeat.

Having printables on hand makes life easier, knowing you can use them for morning work, centers, and even to fill sub plans. With these printables, you have 40 pages of math and literacy ready-to-go worksheets for kindergarten learners. They include color by codes, number stories, graphic organizers, and so much more. You’ll want to have these for your dinosaur unit.

While these are some of my dinosaur themed favorites, there are so many more resources and fun activities for dinosaur-themed learning. Check out my store for more and look under the Dinosaur heading for all of these resources in one place.

As always, thanks so much for stopping by!