Use salt dough comprising one cup of fine salt, one cup of flour and 1/2 cup of water mixed well and kneaded. Give each student a ball of dough and instruct him to work with the dough, flattening it into a thick pancake. The students will remove one shoe and sock and make a preschool-a-saurus footprint fossil by allowing it to dry. As an added art activity, paint the foot fossils in decorative colors.
Bury different sized dog bones in the outdoor sandbox prior to recess time. Allow each student to search for dinosaur bones in the sandbox using small paint brushes to wipe the sand away. After the bones have been found, the students will replace them in order for others to take a turn pretending to be an archaeologist. For younger preschool students, purchase small plastic dinosaurs from your local dollar store to bury in the sand. If a sandbox is not available, use play sand to bury the bones in a small plastic container.
Draw a dinosaur template or download a free dinosaur template on the Internet. The teacher may trace and cut dinosaurs out of contact paper while leaving the backing paper attached. For older preschool students, encourage tracing and cutting for each individual student to accomplish. Cut small squares of tissue paper in many various colors or use scrap tissue paper left from other activities and peel the backing from the contact paper dinosaur. The students will stick and overlap the tissue paper pieces to the sticky side of the contact paper and will create a dino mosaic.
Send a note home with your preschoolers asking parents to bring to school an old white T-shirt for their child to construct a wearable art activity. Cut dinosaur shapes out of inexpensive kitchen sponges and spread a thin layer of fabric paint onto a paper plate. The students will dip the dino sponge into the paint and dab it once onto the T-shirt. As an added tip, place a square of cardboard inside the shirt until the paint dries to keep it from bleeding onto the back of the shirt.