Our culminating activity for our dinosaur/volcano week was a morning playing Escape the Volcano!
Skills our silly game focused on included: color recognition, shape names, counting, singing, gross motor skills, using a full sentence, answering simple questions, and following directions.
Materials Needed: game pieces for each player (little people work great), game board pieces, dice template, and tape
Directions:
1. Print out your dice template and put it together. I liked this one because it helped the game go a bit slower so that we mostly landed on every square.
2. Print out your game board pieces and tape them to the floor. We printed off two sets and made them go everywhere!
3. Place your volcano at the start of your gameboard...
and your house at the end... when you reach the house, you've survived and escaped the volcano!!
4. Brainstorm what you want each game board piece to say. We printed out one version of game board pieces that had pre-printed activities on them and another one that was blank... so my little guy could help me decide what we were going to do.
Some of the activities we came up with were: slither around like a snake, fly around the room like a pterodactyl, skip in a circle, count to 20, kiss Caitlin (baby), crab walk around the room, stomp around like a dinosaur, sing Two Little Blackbirds, etc.
5. Start playing! The first player rolls the dice and then moves that many spaces. Once he gets to his spot, he reads what the game board piece says and does the action.
jumping jacks
We had so much fun moving our crazy game pieces across the board... and yelling as we were trying to escape. My little guy kept getting worried that the lava was going to get us!
donkey kicks
As we landed on each piece, we talked about the name of each shape, counted the sides (when necessary), and said the color of the shape. You could also talk about objects in your house that are the same shape.
Wow! We were exhausted when we were done playing. If you double the game board pieces, you may want to print out your own blank die and put numbers 1-4 on it instead of just 1-2... otherwise it might take too long. I tried to avoid the dice templates that had numbers 1-6 because they just made the game go too quickly and you ended up skipping too many of the shapes.
After we played the game each time, we walked along the game board pieces and as we stepped on each shape, we said it's name. Some were trickier than others- especially hexagon, pentagon, and octagon!
We also included some game board pieces that asked the players to tell something about themselves (favorite song, food, etc.). When we landed on these spots we worked on using full sentences to share about ourselves. Making a whole game board of "get to know you" questions would be perfect to do with new friends. By the end of the game, everyone would know a little bit more about each other! I loved seeing my little guy's face light up when he got to share something about himself. We worked on not interrupting when I was sharing about myself and he wanted to tell something too. We talked about taking turns in conversation and then how to make appropriate follow up comments or questions when someone shares.
Thanks for joining us for some dinosaur and volcano fun this week at Camp Mom! Next week we'll be moving and grooving with planes, trains, automobiles, and all sorts of other vehicles!
Hi,
My daughter and I played this today. Instead of printing the templates, I copied the pictures onto coloured card (for the volcano and the house) and thin craft sponge shapes (for the challenges). I also made my own dice by sticking shapes onto a cube building block and it all worked really well. We also added some of our own ideas for challenges. My four year old enjoyed this and I’m sure we will play it again. I took some sweet photos, but wasn’t sure how or where to upload them.
Thanks for the idea, Amy xx
Awesome! I’m so glad you enjoyed them.
I love this but it's not printing for me. Any ideas?
Thank you SOOOO much for this awesome game
im a childminder and we had all the kids playing this
many hours of fun to be had
Absolutely great idea for parents and kids to interact, inside game for preschoolers and P-K and K kids. I would also use this as a review for 1st and second graders. Unlimited possibilities. Love, love, love this! *****
I tried to download your baby animals and ocean animals can't get either one please send them to me bads1090[at]hotmail.com
I can't download it either. Please email me too @ [email protected]
another idea, hide old easter eggs, no candy , just write little notes , so when they find the eggs they get to make the other player do silly things, like bark like a dog, put a slice of cheese on your mouth and try and eat it, go put a bed sheet over your head and go scare your mom, silly stuff like that. Thanks again for all these wonderful ideas!
This seems like an excellent idea. Definitely going to adapt this for my classroom — I'm sure my kids will love it. Thanks for the idea!
This is awesome!!!!!
Hello!
Unfortunately I can also not print it. Can I please have the pdf version?
Thank you in advance!
Greetings from Hungary! 🙂
Ákos
Hello,
Is it please possible to have this great idea also in a pdf version? I can't print it either. Thank you in advance!
Greetings from Hungary! 🙂
Ákos
hello it's nice but it doesn't work for me :-/ my email e.greenmaman[at]gmail.com thank you ( my pinterest pinterest.com/greenmaman/boards/ )
bye (from Paris France)
Love this idea…thanks for sharing. Couldn't get it to print…any suggestions
fell free to email me Karen and I can send you the pdf. toddlerapproved[at]gmail.com
I have had several people try it and be able to print it out. Some it doesn't work for, so just email me.
Awesome! Please post more!
Thank you so much, it's a long cold winter in NY and I am printing this now to play with my preschooler!
I have some dice I think would work great for this activity! It has pockets on all sides, so you can change them as you need it. Thanks for the idea! We'll be doing it soon!
amazon.com/gp/product/B001UFYG5E?camp=1789&ie=UTF8
If you save it as a PDF it will print. There is a download tab at the bottom of the page.
mine wont print either . please email them to me at jamiebald86[at]yahoo.com
Hi, Im having trouble printing it too. i love this idea!!! Is it possible to email me the pdf files too. kyles0206[at]hotmail.com thanks so much.
Thanks kylie
This is awesome, thank you so much!
Fabulous! As a special needs mom I see so much potential with this game! Thanks for sharing it with us.
This is a great idea! THanks for sharing so we can all enjoy!
Corie
thedatingdivas.com
Love this idea! I'm trying to figure out how to print it though; the link isn't printing correctly for me. Any advice?
Weird. Not sure why Kim. Shoot me an email and I can email you the pdf toddlerapproved (at) gmail (dot) come
Can you send it to my email as well, yubbies.lang[at]yahoo.com
Thank you!
Can you send it to my email as well? yubbies.lang[at]yahoo.com
Thank you!
I also need it please – [email protected]
Me too, please! zligee[at]gmail.com
I love this!! Thank you for sharing!
What a great idea! I'm definitely going to try this with my daughter and maybe some of her friends.
How creative! Found this on Pinterest. For an older child you could use a regular 1-6 dice and divide the total, ex.. 6/3 = 2.
I think both my kids could do this at 3 and 4! Great idea!!!
Great idea! Saved in on my to do list. Thank u for sharing
This is such a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
My 4 yr old is obsessed with dinosaurs and he would LOVE this! I'm so happy to have found your blog through Sunday Showcase and am now following. Can't wait to read more.
Yay- you linked up! This is such a great activity- we are going to have to do this on the home front! Thank you for sharing this idea with us on The Sunday Showcase 😉
what a fun game – love the actions (donkey kicks, slither)!
This would be great to incorporate into so many themes and model the actions to fit it – loving the idea. Thanks for sharing.
Would love to invite you to share on my child centered linky party – the Sunday Showcase – momto2poshlildivas.blogspot.com/2011/07/sunday-showcase-child-centered-linky_30.html
Bernadette
That looks like an absolute blast. I am going to have to put this on my pintrest to keep this in mind!
Thank you and thanks for stopping by Kristi! 🙂
I love this life size game…the pre-academics, the motor, and social too. It cover's it all. Thanks for sharing. 🙂 Kristi