Dino Day: Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug

Hi friends. How are you all doing? I hope you are well, healthy, and pushing through these trying times. I know it can be hard to keep the kiddos entertained and busy when our minds are on heavy things and our hearts are breaking. So I hope you can find some good ideas here on For Little Readers to fill your days. We've been doing theme days recently and I can't wait to share all of our ideas with you.

Last week, we had a Dinosaur Day. Of course, we had to start with a book.

Tiny T. Rex and the Impossible Hug by Jonathan Stutzman and Jay Fleck is such a cute book. I love the message of determination to do the seemingly impossible to help a friend. And it's funny along the way, which is always a great bonus for me. My girls were cracking up at little T. Rex trying to hug an ice cream cone and a cactus for practice. The illustrations are fun and the text moves along quickly. It was a great start to our dino day. With libraries mostly closed, this is a good one that you can check out on Hoopla if your library supports that app.

Our dino day activities included this fun Dinosaur Paper Plate craft. I always have to talk myself into getting the paints out, because I know that it will be a fun, messy disaster with little ones. But it's literally always worth the mess.

You can print out the templates for this fun craft from Learn With Play At Home. My girls had so much fun with the sponge painting. They were a little patient on waiting for them to dry, so if your little ones aren't big on waiting, or they don't like getting messy, maybe go with crayons instead of paint.

After our dino craft and some dino shaped chicken nuggets for lunch, we went for a fossil dig. I had enough messy for one day with paints, so instead of filling my buckets with dirt/sand, I went with rice. Then I laminated some fossil print outs and burried them in the rice. You wouldn't have to laminate either if you want to skip that step. Then give the kids a paint brush and let them discover the fossils. Simple and fun.

I found this cute coloring page, free to download from Crayola.

We wrapped up the day watching "The Good Dinosaur" on Disney+. I admittedly had never seen it before, and it was *slightly* more intense than I was prepared for. My kiddos were okay in the end, but there were definitely moments that they were not feeling it.

I hope you have an awesome Dino Day and stay busy with meaningful moments with your kiddos. If you have the Libby app, there are lots of good dino books available there too.

Meet Kailei Pew

Kailei believes in books. She believes in imaginative play. She believes in having fun, getting messy, and being silly with her kids. Thus For Little Readers was born.​ Kailei also writes picture books and is currently seeking representation. She loves creating books that bring children and parents together. Kailei hopes that her own books will one day be featured in her blog. ​Prior to staying home with her children and writing picture books, Kailei worked as a reading teacher and middle school mentor. She was a 2019 Write Mentor Mentee and a finalist in Susanna Leonard Hill's 2019 Holiday Writing Contest.