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Dinosaur activities for preschool: a 5-day theme plan
This five-day plan of dinosaur activities for preschool introduces Nursery (ages 3–4) children to prehistoric life through creative, hands-on learning. Across the week, children explore how dinosaurs hatched from eggs, examine habitats and diets, investigate extinction, and uncover fossils. Alongside the theme, daily sessions build foundational phonics through letter Xx and introduce diamond and square shapes.
At a glance
| Element | Details |
|---|---|
| Age band | Nursery (ages 3–4) |
| Length | 5 days |
| Learning goals | Describe dinosaurs as prehistoric animals and recognise they hatched from eggs; compare habitats, physical traits, and plant- or meat-based diets; explore extinction causes and jobs that study dinosaur evidence; recognise and write letter Xx; identify and compare diamond and square shapes. |
| Key materials | Dinosaur pictures and videos, paper cutouts, child-friendly scissors, glue, paints, crayons, pasta, green paper, sand tray, flour dough, dinosaur toys, ice-cream sticks, clay, letter Xx flashcards. |
| Printables | Nursery Week 28 — Dinosaurs (lesson plan) and Nursery · Dinosaurs · Week 28 — Combined week package (TP + Tasksheets) |
The five-day plan
Day 1: Who Were Dinosaurs
Children begin the week by exploring dinosaur images and videos, discussing how prehistoric reptiles hatched from eggs and protected their babies. In their main creative activity, children assemble a cracked-egg collage using paper cutouts of a textured shell, green spots, and a baby dinosaur head. Phonics and early maths follow as children form the letter Xx using classroom sticks and string, alongside identifying real-world diamond shapes with Exploring the Diamond Shape.
“How do we know about dinosaur eggs if they don’t exist anymore?”
Day 2: Types of Dinosaurs and their Habitat
On the second day, children investigate diverse prehistoric habitats and climates, examining how dinosaurs co-existed with other prehistoric animals on land and near water. Children create expressive handprint dinosaur artwork by stamping painted palms onto paper and adding detailed drawings of grasslands, horns, long necks, and colourful spots. The session connects with Exploring Types of Dinosaurs before children recite phonic rhymes for letter Xx and build diamond flower petals using yellow and green paper cutouts.
“Where did most dinosaurs live: on land or underwater?”
Day 3: How did Dinosaurs get their Food
Day three focuses on prehistoric diets, helping children compare how herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores gathered their food. Children build a tactile collage by gluing pasta shells and tubes onto a dinosaur cutout to represent skeleton bones, adding a leafy tree made of green paper and string. Close adult supervision is essential during this collage activity, as small pieces of dried pasta present a choking hazard at this age. Children then share objects for a letter Xx show-and-tell session and build four-sided figures using painted ice-cream sticks with Exploring the Square Shape.
“Which dinosaurs were bigger: the meat-eaters or the plant-eaters?”
Day 4: Investigating Extinction of Dinosaurs
Children examine scientific ideas about dinosaur extinction on day four, discussing dramatic asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions alongside modern endangered animals. For their main creative project, children construct wearable dinosaur masks with Making a Paper Plate Dinosaur by cutting eye holes, applying tempera paint, and attaching cut-out horns with elastic string. To complete the session, children practise tracing letter Xx symbols in sand trays and search the classroom for square objects to paste into concentric paper collages.
“How would life be if dinosaurs were still alive and around us?”
Day 5: Jobs Related to Exploration of Dinosaurs
The final day highlights the careers of scientists who uncover ancient life, showing children how fossilised bones reveal fascinating stories from the past. Children become palaeontologists as they carefully unearth flour-dough dinosaur fossils from a sand tray with small brushes before studying prehistoric anatomy with Exploring Skeleton of a Dinosaur. Literacy and maths conclude the week as children paste cotton earbuds inside traced hand outlines for letter X-rays and sculpt diamond and square shapes out of soft wheat dough.
“Why do we need to preserve dinosaur bones?”
Adapting the week
- For younger or less confident children: Pre-cut the paper egg shells, dinosaur horns, and diamond petals beforehand so children can focus entirely on sensory painting, pasting, and mark-making without handling scissors.
- For children who need more challenge: Invite children to sort toy dinosaurs or pictures by diet, comparing herbivores and carnivores, and challenge them to count the straight sides and corners on their stick squares and clay diamonds.
- For small spaces or no outdoor access: Replace active running warm-ups with tabletop movement chants, using individual shallow trays for sand tracing and small-scale fossil brush excavations.
- For home learners: Substitute classroom art materials with household staples by making flour-and-salt dough fossils (an adult bakes them, or leave them to air-dry) and using dried kitchen pasta or recycled cereal boxes for geometric shape collages.
Questions teachers ask
How do you explain dinosaur extinction to 3-year-olds?
Keep the explanation gentle, concrete, and reassuring for nursery-age children. Explain that dinosaurs lived a very long time ago and that sudden changes to the Earth, such as falling space rocks or erupting volcanoes, made the environment too cold and dusty for them to survive. Reassure children that human beings were not around back then, and direct their curiosity toward how palaeontologists discover fossil bones in the ground today.
What materials do I need for preschool dinosaur fossil activities?
Simple pantry staples and basic classroom supplies are all you need for an engaging fossil excavation. Mix flour, water, and salt into a stiff dough, press small plastic dinosaur toys into the surface to leave distinct footprint impressions, and allow them to dry. Place the hardened dough fossils into a sand tray alongside child-friendly paintbrushes, giving children the tools to gently sweep away sand like real excavators.
How do you connect a dinosaur theme to early literacy and maths?
Connect literacy and maths naturally through hands-on dinosaur investigations rather than isolated drills. Use letter Xx to represent crossed dinosaur bones, skeleton X-rays, and musical xylophones, inviting children to form the letter shape using sticks, string, or sand tracing. In maths, introduce diamond and square shapes through geometric dinosaur crafts, real-world card patterns, and stick frames, allowing children to compare straight sides and angles while building spatial awareness.
Get the printables
You can access the complete step-by-step guidance, daily routines, and printable tasksheets in the Superbuddy library. Download the full Nursery Week 28 — Dinosaurs (lesson plan) and the accompanying Nursery · Dinosaurs · Week 28 — Combined week package (TP + Tasksheets) to run this unit in your classroom. You can also explore additional prehistoric teaching resources across our dinosaurs topic hub. Superbuddy is free to start.