Kindergartner-in-Training: "Dinosaur Dig" is a Fun Counting Book for Preschoolers

Dinosaur Dig! by Penny Dale is a fun book that has a little bit of everything that most boys love: dinosaurs, diggers, and tons of dirt. Plus, it has a lot of counting, so it’s got a lesson in it too, to please parents. It’s got tons of great illustrations that are bright and fun, teaches about dinosaurs, counting, and tractors, and even has a surprising ending, so kids are sure to love it.

My kids loved everything about Dinosaur Dig!, from the pictures to the fun ending. It is a very entertaining book that I thought was great for kids of all ages and I loved the way it made counting fun. I would recommend this book for preschool-aged children, but think a little dinosaur lover of any age would find this book to be great.

You can learn more about Dinosaur Dig! at www.candlewick.com. It can be purchased at most retailers, such as Amazon.com for about $15.99.


Thank you to Candlewick Press for providing a complimentary product sample for us to base this review upon.

Play To Learn Diner: Counting with Fruit Salad Activity (Free Printable)

This is our first Play To Learn Diner activity designed for preschoolers.  I was a little worried about how it would be received, since one of our twins loves learning activities, but the other is resistant to them because he does not master them as easily.  I am very pleased to be able to report that both twins enjoyed this activity very much.  In fact, our son even came to me two hours later to tell me how much he liked the activity, so I hope other children out there will enjoy it just as much.

For this activity, we used Soft Fruit Counters, one plastic bowl for each child, and one of the counting worksheets (found below) for each child.  The Soft Fruit Counters set from Discount School Supply contains 108 pieces of fruit between 1" and 2" each.  You are welcome to use other types of pretend fruit, but you will need to have more than 20 pieces of fruit per child.  I liked using these because the size made them easy to manage for little hands and they fit inside the bowls perfectly.

TO PRINT:  Click on the image below to enlarge.  Then right-click on the image and select print.  Use your browser's back button to return to this page.

This activity is split into two parts.  The first part asks your child to choose any 10 pieces of fruit to put in his or her bowl in order to create a fruit salad recipe.  Then your child should count how many of each type of fruit is in the bowl and write the correct number in the box next to the appropriate fruit pictured on the worksheet.

The second part of the activity asks your child to repeat the same steps, but to choose 20 pieces of fruit, instead of 10.

(Click any image to enlarge)

This activity helps your child to practice counting from 1 to 10 and from 1 to 20.  Then there is more practice counting when he or she needs to figure out how many of each type of fruit they have in the bowl  Your child also will be introduced to writing numbers.  I had to make dotted lines for some of the numbers for both twins to trace.  Our daughter picked up writing her numbers quickly.  After the first time she traced a number, she did not need me to make dotted lines for her again for the same number.  Our son needed to trace most of his numbers, except for 0 and 1.

Thank you to Discount School Supply for sending us a complimentary product sample to use for this activity.