I'm a Dirty Dinosaur!

"I'm a dirty dinosaur with a dirty tum. I splatter it with mud and I tap it like a drum!"

If you haven't read this book already it's absolutely amazing! The gentle rhyming text and fun actions incited lots of giggles in my 18 month old! We walked around patting our tummy's like drums, stomping on the ground and shaking out bodies all over the place! We may have danced a little too ;)

After moving and grooving to the story Stryder was very excited to talk about the mud. He kept pointing to each page and saying "dirty", "mud". Well I am not the greatest artist in the world (that skipped me and went straight to my sister) so thank goodness for the free printables on the Kane Miller website! We just downloaded a picture of the dirty dinosaur from their website and we were ready to go. Since Stryder is still a toddler I decided to tape the paper to table, cover him in a smock, and BOOM paint time! Except ... painting with brown paint is boring so we used Chocolate pudding! Not only is it a fun change to paint, there isn't a problem if he eats it! Stryder had so much fun we had to print a second page for him to make another dinosaur "dirty"!

So here is a nice easy, way to extend the reading from Janeen Brian & Ann James' I'm a Dirty Dinosaur:

CHOCOLATE PUDDING DIRTY DINO

Materials

- print-out from Kane Miller website

- chocolate pudding

- smock

- paintbrush or popsicle stick

Process & learning development

- Discuss the strokes your child is using with the paintbrush.

- Describe the part of the dinosaur they are covering with the pudding.

- Use descriptive words and positive reinforcement to engage your child and encourage the continuation of the activity.

- Listen to your child's cues and follow his lead on this creative and simple art project.

As always please share YOUR pictures of you and your child doing the fun activity! We love to see how everyone makes it their own!! Happy Reading, Aimee