Dinosaur Shapes Roll and Graph Activity

My 3 year old son loves dinosaurs and racing anything! I’m sure many other young kids do too. This printable game combines both while helping him learn shapes and count to 5 as well.

Set it up

* Paper and printer
* crayons/color pencils/markers to color in the boxes
* scissors to cut out the dice template
* glue to stick down the tabs of the dice
* optional: card to print the dice template on 
* optional: laminator to make the game reusable
* optional: dry erase markers instead of crayons if laminating or you can also use some kind of manipulative/counter instead of shading the boxes

Start it up

Simply roll the dice and see which shape comes up. Then shade one of the corresponding boxes and see which shape gets 5 shaded boxes first. That’s the winner!

My son found the game pretty straightforward as he’s used to getting 3-step directions. If you’re using the worksheet with younger children they may need to be shorter instructions.

He also didn’t want to stop at just having one shape ‘win’ the race. He wanted them all to cross the finish line. So it actually kept him entertained for a good 30 minutes at least because that’s how long it took for him to roll 5 of each shape.

Learning shapes, counting to 5, promoting patience and even cultivating fair sportsmanship all in one game!

And that half an hour of him being kept busy was priceless 🙂

Level up

This printable game can easily be turned into a group activity by having each child pick a shape and taking turns trying to roll 5 of their own shape.

If you have older children, you could extend playtime by having them reach 10 or even 20 boxes before crossing the finish line instead of just 5.

Another idea is to have them color the boxes with a specific color for each shape.

You could also change it up by using a spinner with shapes drawn on if you have one, instead of using the dice template provided.

There are just so many ways to use this worksheet!

Pair it up

If your child loves dinosaurs, check out these books about them. My son is completely hooked on these!

1. National Geographic Little Kids First Big Book Of Dinosaurs – This reference book is a bit advanced but it’s one that you can keep in the library for many years to come. Mr R loves to look through all the great illustrations. It will expose them to much more than just the common T Rex, apatosaurus, triceratops and stegosaurus.

2. How To Grow A Dinosaur – This is an imaginative adventure story about a little boy who grew a jungle complete with dinosaurs in his backyard. There is a whole series of these Albie books and we have each and every one of them!