Does your child LOVE dinosaurs? Here’s why you should encourage your child’s love of dinosaurs.
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Does Your Child Love Dinosaurs?
My little boy’s whole day revolves around dinosaurs. He loves playing with his dinosaur toys, wearing his dinosaur costume, reading dinosaur books, playing dinosaur games… if it involves dinosaurs, he’s down for anything. Does that sound familiar?
Loving dinosaurs is a pretty common phase for children to go through. Heck. it’s a pretty common phase for adults to go through too! There’s something almost magical about dinosaurs. Even though we have the fossil record, there are no pictures. Scientists make educated guesses when it comes to the question, “What did dinosaurs look like?” While we know that they actually existed, we have to use our imaginations when it comes to dinosaurs. And you know who is really good at using their imaginations in fun and brilliant ways? Kids!
Use Dinosaurs for Kids’ Creative Learning
You can use dinosaurs in creative ways to teach your child all sorts of things. For example, my four year old has learned quite a bit about geography. He has one of those fantastic interactive globes. He knows that Argentinosaurus is from South America. He can point to South America on a globe as well as all of the continents because he wants to know where his favorite dinosaurs lived. He’s also learning how to spell by sounding out his favorite dinosaur names.
My second grader learned how to create a PowerPoint presentation after he saw that he could include some awesome dinosaur animation. It took him all of 30 minutes to learn the software (and I ended up learning too!) all because the dinosaurs caught his eye. By the way, his presentation was so good that one of the professors at the university my mom worked at used the PowerPoint as an example for his college students.
I think my kids are pretty smart. But the truth is that most small children are smart. I’m sure you’ve heard that children under five are like sponges soaking up knowledge. So use their interest in dinosaurs to their advantage. As a teacher, my mom always said you can teach any child anything as long as you find a way to relate it to something they understand and are interested in.
Give In To The Dinosaur Obsession
Instead of being concerned or even annoyed that your child seems obsessed with dinosaurs, take some time to engage with them on their favorite topic.
Entertain your kids with funny dinosaur names. My favorite is the Irritator. There is a really cute story telling why the paleontologists gave this guy his name! And speaking of names, while your little one is running around pronouncing ‘pachycephalosaurus’ and ‘paleolithic’, make a game out of teaching root words. It’s a fun way for the entire family to learn together. The possibilities are endless.
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