Get Ready For Kindergarden With Dinosaur Train Review

August is “Get Ready for Kindergarten Month,” and new back-to-school products and online educational activities from the hit preschool brand, Dinosaur Train, can help you and your children to be prepared!

If you are not familiar with Dinosaur Train--it is a children's show on PBS Kids that takes them on adventures with Buddy the T.Rex and his adoptive family of Pteranodons as they travel through prehistoric jungles, swamps, volcanoes and oceans as they unearth the basic concepts in natural science, natural history and paleontology. The Dinosaur Train is a colorful locomotive, customized to accommodate all kinds of dinosaurs and it has the ability to cross time to visit the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous time periods, while the train's conductor, a knowledgeable Troodon provides the passengers (and our kids) with fascinating facts along the way! My child absolutely loves this show.

Transitioning to Kindergarten can be a stressful time for young children as they take on a new role as “student”—in addition to other changes such as new surroundings, routines and expectations, and in some cases being away from parents for the first time.

There are many things, however, that can be done to help prepare children for this big transition and a familiarity with some key skills will be beneficial.   The Jim Henson Company and PBS KIDS have included some fun ideas from the award-winning Dinosaur Train website  that will help children familiarize themselves with and build upon some specific skills, while at the same time enjoying their favorite characters!

Practice reading and speaking.  Help your child practice the letters of the alphabet while learning, speaking and singing about the diversity of dinosaurs that once lived on Earth with the “Dinosaurs A – Z song.” Have fun learning about letters, and dinosaurs. 

Learn about color. Help your child understand, investigate and make predictions about the science of color, using household basics including food coloring, clean food jars/containers, colored markers and a cookie sheet.   For details go to "A Colorful Hypothesis."

Develop fine motor skills such as coloring; cutting; drawing; buttoning; zippering; building.  With Buddy’s help, you can practice some of these skills while making a Stegosaurus Puppet.

Practice gross motor skills such as running, jumping and throwing.  Try “Playing Dino Ball Your Way” to improve these skills--and get some exercise too--by inventing the rules for an imaginary game and then playing it!  

Explore size and scale. Using illustrations and physical markers, kids can measure out size differences in large dinosaurs to understand their size and scale! Check out the activity “Even Bigger than T.rex!”  and have some fun while learning about size.

Of course there are many other important skills for children to be familiar with before starting Kindergarten – these are just a few ways to have fun with, along with your friends from Dinosaur Train!

To celebrate Get Ready for Kindergarten Month, The Jim Henson Company, Random House, Crayola, MEGA Brands and Kids with Character have teamed up to offer some great new items to help your child prepare and have fun!!  Here are some “Get ready for Kindergarten”shopping ideas to help build on some of the above skills or just for play and fun:

 
DINOSAURS A TO Z from Golden Books by Andrea Posner-Sanchez; illustrated by
Terry Izumi.

Meet 26 dinosaurs—one for each letter of the alphabet—in this Dinosaur Train™ alphabet book. Buddy, Mr. Conductor, and the otherDinosaur Train™ characters from the hit PBS Kids® animated series introduce dinos from Apatosaurus to Zigongosaurus! Young paleontologists-in-training will love learning cool facts about 26 amazing dinosaurs. This awesome non-fiction book with a sturdy padded cover makes a great gift! 






DINOSAUR TRAIN COLORING PAD & MARKER SET from Crayola Mess Free Color Wonder

With Crayola Mess Free Color Wonder, the inks are clear, and colors magically appear only when the markers meet the special Color Wonder paper. Kids are free to unleash their imaginations and love the way each marker magically reveals a different color on the special paper. Moms love the fact that Color Wonder inks will not appear on skin, walls or carpet, so there’s no clean up involved.




MEGA BLOKS Dinosaur Train “All Aboard the Dinosaur Train!” from MEGA Brands

All aboard the Dinosaur Train! Have your little dino-engineers join Buddy and Tiny on their adventures through the Age of Dinosaurs with their tour guide Gilbert aboard the Dinosaur Train! Build and rebuild the authentic Dinosaur Train with two observation cars, opening doors and replica brown roof as it pulls into Pteranodon Station to pick up a new group of passengers. Make sure children have their tickets ready so they can visit the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous time periods and meet all kinds of cool dinosaurs with Buddy, Tiny and Gilbert!

Features:
• Buildable Dinosaur Train and Pteranodon Station!
• Mr. Conductor sticker and big red wheels that really spin!
• Includes Gilbert, Buddy and Tiny figurines!
• Combine with other toys to mix and match pieces and build your own adventures with Buddy and his family on the Dinosaur Train!






MEGA BLOKS Buddy from MEGA Brands
Give your little Dinosaur Train fan the chance to join everyone’s favorite T-Rex Buddy to meet, explore, and have adventures with all kinds of friendly dinosaurs aboard The Dinosaur Train! Sit bobble head Buddy in his Dinosaur Train passenger car and get ready to find out all about his favorite prehistoric friends with the included fun and informative dinosaur fact card!


Features:
-Buildable Buddy passenger car and scenery block!-Includes bobble head Buddy figurine! Give him a shake!
-Includes fun dinosaur fact card that teaches all about different types of dinosaurs!
-Combine with other toys to mix and match pieces and build your own adventures with Buddy and his family!





DINOSAUR TRAIN APPAREL from Kids with Character!
 Dinosaur Train’s summer line shirts and pants/shorts sets are great for back to school. Look for NEW Dinosaur Train apparel coming in August and September at Kohls and Kmart. 
  

 

My 4 year old loves everything 'Dinosaur Train'--in fact he is playing on the Dinosaur Train website right now! Our DVR is set to record it daily and he can tell me most of the varieties of dinosaurs and what they eat--carnivore, herbivore or omnivore because we watch this show. I love the show because it teaches equality--we may be different in some aspects but we are all still the same in so many others and it promotes adoption in a very positive way.  We were able to check out some of the new Dinosaur Train/ Kids with Character apparel and my child LOVES it--he already has plans to wear it on the first day of school (I think it looks pretty cute on him as well)!  He has also added several other products pictured above to his "wish list." I am all for doing whatever it takes to make learning fun, because when it is fun they just seem to comprehend and retain the information better--and Dinosaur Train is the perfect avenue for us to teach our child!

Get ready for an all-new season of Dinosaur Train this August with “Dinosaur Big City” which premieres on PBS Kids on August 22; and the DVD release of Dinosaur Train: Dinosaur Big City on August 23.  From the world-renowned Jim Henson Company, Dinosaur Train is seen in over 13 million households every month and embraces and celebrates preschoolers’ fascination with both dinosaurs and trains. The series encourages scientific thinking and other skills as it teaches viewers about natural science, natural history and paleontology.

You can get all the up to date information on the Jim Henson Company by following them on Facebook and Twitter--you can also keep the specifics on the PBS Kids happenings on their Facebook and Twitter Pages!

Thank you to 360-comm for my sample used in this review.  Opinions are honest, review by Michelle.

 

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