Dinosaur Activity Mat

We absolutely love completing activity mats and had to create one to kick off our Dinosaur Preschool Theme. The creative side of me didn’t want to just use a plain piece of paper like we did for our Donut Activity mat, so I turned on the artist inside of me and drew up a fun dinosaur for my little ones to complete their activities on.

D is for Dinosaur Activity Mat

The kids absolutely loved the giant dinosaur on this one. One of the things we absolutely love to do with activity mats is to start with a story. For this one we chose, Dinosaur Dig, which my tiny tot construction loving little dude loved so much. If you are looking for additional dinosaur books for your learning, check out this Dinosaur Books List. 

We chose to focus on a few things we were working on for the activities on this mat and if your children are working on other letters or numbers you can just swap them out for your own skills. Make them fit where you are in your learning. 

For this activity mat we focused on counting, letter identification of the Letter D, fine motor skills, and tracing. 

Find & Circle Letter Dds

I wrote a bunch of capital and lowercase letter Dds as well as several additional letters on the dinosaurs head and Miss 3 used a marker to circle all of the capital and lowercase Dds. 

Trace Numbers 1-4

On the dinosaur's feet I created the numbers 1-4 for Miss 3 to trace. This practiced counting the number of feet on the dinosaur and worked on writing and tracing practice. 

Count the Dino Eggs

This activity worked on counting, patterns, and number identification and tracing. Miss 3 counted the dinosaur eggs I drew on the mat and then traced the number 5. 

Build the Letter Dd

Our color of the week is green so Miss 3 used green playdough to trace and build the letter. For younger toddlers and preschoolers you can write the letters on the mat and then they can use the playdough to trace the letter and for older toddlers and preschoolers they can just make the letters themselves. 

Dot Marker Trace Letter Dd

I wrote the Letter Dd on the mat and Miss 3 used our dot markers to trace the letter Dd. 

Dino Tracks

And for fun, the kids (3 and 16 months) used their little dinosaur animal figures and some "mud" aka brown paint and made tracks on the mat. 

This mat was so much fun for both kids. Every time she found a D we would discuss how it made the /d/ sound and I would explain how that is how we know Dinosaur starts with the letter D. So much learning took place just by talking about the things she was doing on the mat and wouldn’t you know she can spot a Dd a mile away now. It amazes me how something so simple has such amazing outcomes. Little Miss certainly learns through hands on engaging activities and these mats are just that.

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