Big and Small; D, D, Dinosaur 

This week we will work with lots of cool stuff that starts with the letter D.  We are going to talk about sizes and compare; big and small; short and tall; long and short. We will take another walk and pretend that we are paleontologists. We will play a counting game with ladybugs and tell a story about Johnny Appleseed.

Draw the letter D on a blank sheet of paper and let the children color it. Have them choose dark colors because dark begins with D. Let them brainstorm on other words that start with D. Chances are one of them will say dinosaur.

When you get to dinosaur, ask them if anyone knows how we know about dinosaurs. Explain to them that there are people who dig in the dirt to find out things about our earth’s past. When they find dinosaur bones, they piece them together like a puzzle to find out what they looked like. These people are scientists, called paleontologists.

Go on a nature walk and bring along some small digging utensils. Old spoons work great for this. Find an area that each one of them can have their own spot to dig, making sure you aren’t going to damage anyone’s property. See what kinds of things they can “dig up”! If anything, they will have fun just playing in the dirt. Most likely you will at least come across a rock or two. Ask them how they can tell the difference between a rock and a dinosaur bone.

When you get home, draw (or trace) some pictures of dinosaurs. Make them about 4” by 5”, that way you can get four to a piece of paper. Make two of each dinosaur and play a matching game. Trace some dinosaurs on a full sheet of paper and cut them out to make a simple puzzle to put together. Coloring books are excellent sources of simple pictures to trace for this.

Talk about size. Dinosaurs are large compared to us, yet we are large compared to a mouse. Have the children line up, side by side. Have them decide who is the tallest and line each other up from tallest to shortest. You can make some very simple worksheets for biggest and smallest; tallest and shortest; and longest and shortest. Pencils and crayons are easy to draw and they can be long or short. Have them circle either the longest or the shortest. For short and tall, giraffes or trees will work. And for big and small you can use cars and cookies.

Ladybugs are easy to draw and make a wonderful way to learn counting. You can either draw several ladybugs with a different number of dots and have the children count the dots on each one, or you can draw one ladybug with no spots for each child. Make several black dots and tell a number and have them put that amount of dots on their ladybug. You can also have them take turns at rolling a die and putting that amount of dots on their ladybug. For an introduction to addition for older children you can give them two dice.

Tell them the story about Johnny Appleseed. Johnny Appleseed lived in Pennsylvania before many of the settlers had started moving west. The west was all wilderness, forests and animals. As Johnny watched the settlers load up into their covered wagons, he wanted to go with them. He had heard that there were no apple trees in the wilderness, so he packed up a sack full of apple saplings and seeds, a few clothes, a put a cooking pot on top of his head and headed west. He made friends with the animals and the Indians, and the settlers always welcomed him into their homes. He planted apple trees everywhere he went. He traveled for forty years over what we now know as Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana. Johnny’s real name was John Chapman and he gained the nickname Johnny Appleseed from all the work he did planting apple trees.

Talk about nicknames and what they mean. How do people get nicknames? Some are just shortened versions of their name. Some come from something that person did, like Johnny Appleseed. Show the kids how to make applesauce by peeling and coring some apples. Chop them into small pieces and heat them in some water with a little cinnamon and some sugar. Makes a yummy snack.