Sensory & Sounds Dinosaur Dig

One of our most favorite activities in the Dinosaur unit is definitely the letter sound sensory  play activity! This activity will need a little extra prep (cutting, getting small sensory bin set up) but the reward is well worth it. Here’s what you’ll need if you want to play! 

• small sensory bin- this can be anything from a plastic shoe box to a sheet pan, although you’ll want the sides of the bin to be high enough to keep the sensory items inside while still being low enough for your little to reach in. We’re using the container from a melissa and doug stamp set. 🙂 
• small sensory material- dry rice (or rainbow rice) dry beans, or if you’re super brave maybe sand? 
• picture circles
• dinosaur cards

Macie Jane has been working on letters and their sounds for about a year now so she could probably do all 26 cards at one time but in an effort to protect her from frustration or from the activity extending longer than the novelty lasts I only had her find and match half the letters. 

She would hunt through the tray of dry beans to find little picture circles. She would identify the picture and it’s initial sound. Then she would search through the cards to find the letter for that initial sound. It helps to lay out all the cards to see all the possible letters (some can be tricky.)

Sadie (young 3) had fun jumping in to play with the beans and look for pictures. This activity could easily be adapted for speech and language practice with different picture cards to support articulation skills of various sounds (phonemes.)