Hunt like a velociraptor, stomp like a diplodocus, and fly like a pteranodon in this 15-minute dance lesson and creative movement activity themed around prehistoric dinosaurs – A class kids, preschoolers, and toddlers will love to do over and over again!
This free online creative dance and movement activity explores moving our bodies in fun and creative ways to carefully selected music specially chosen to help ignite the imagination and provide a beat and rhythm to move to.
This dinosaur dance class is great as an extended brain break in the classroom or even as a springboard to ignite learning about these prehistoric beasts both at school and for home learning. But it is also just a lot of fun to do for any reason – especially if you are after some interactive, fun, and fitness-focused screen time for your kids or toddler.
Click here to go straight to a playlist on Youtube of dance classes by Dance Parent 101. Don’t forget to subscribe to get notifications as the library is growing and should have twenty videos up soon!
LINKS TO THE CURRICULUM
Having majored in Education at university and teaching for several years, I am always looking at ways to creatively teach children and regularly used dance and movement in my classroom to enforce learning of concepts and material we were learning about in different areas of the school curriculum.
The following are some links and connections that can be made from this movement lesson to various other areas of learning!
Mathematics and Arithmetic
- I was blown away by all the dinosaur themed activities for maths as well as in other learning areas at Pocket of Preschool by Jackie a teacher who has created a wonderful website with lots of ideas that you really should visit!
Some other ideas are: - Learn about speed and time discussing how fast the different dinosaurs were thought to have been able to travel.
- Explore the concept of time and the different ages that the dinosaurs lived in and how long ago that was.
- Investigate measurement by finding out how tall and long the dinosaurs were and comparing the differences.
- Count the number of teeth each dinosaur had has, what is the difference between each, which has more and less.
- Use dinosaur figurines and manipulatives to show counting and arithmetic problems visually.
English and Literacy
- Create a spelling list of dinosaur-related words.
- Create a list of adjectives and verbs that describe dinosaurs.
- Write a narrative that is based on a dinosaur.
- Research and write a report about dinosaurs.
- Write an argumentative or persuasive essay expressing your position on how the dinosaurs became extinct.
Social Studies, Science & Technology
- Learn about what a paleontologist is and does.
- Become a paleontologist for a day – go on a dig for fossils, create a dinosaur display for a class or home museum, create a presentation to teach others about dinosaurs.
- Explore how dinosaurs evolved over time.
- Explore where we find living dinosaurs on Earth today and learn about how they survived.
- Investigate how the dinosaurs became extinct.
Geography
- Study and create maps to show where dinosaurs fossils have been found.
- Investigate the types of habitats and terrain that the dinosaurs thrived in.
Art
- Pretend you have never seen an image of a dinosaur before!
Draw, paint or sculpt dinosaurs using descriptions or from just looking at their bones rather than what you have seen a dinosaur looks like.
- Sculpt and make dinosaur bones like in the photo example from Simple Everyday Mom.