Dinosaur Themed Speed Stacking Game

By | July 27th, 2015|Dinosaur Fans, Educational Activities, Teaching|0 Comments

Dinosaur Themed Speed Stacking Game

With many primary schools undertaking a term topic on dinosaurs and fossils or perhaps incorporating prehistoric animals as a subject area in a special science week, here’s a simple and fun memory game which can help budding palaeontologists memorise facts.

As part of Everything Dinosaur’s work in schools we have devised a speed stacking game, which challenges children to sort out and order a dinosaur themed food web.  In addition, we have added a speed stacking game whereby children are challenged to sort out dinosaurs by size.  No need to worry teachers, and teaching assistants!

Speed Stacking Game

In the free, download we also provide a guide to the correct size order of the various dinosaurs we have chosen.  Most of the children will be very familiar with the likes of Triceratops, Brachiosaurus and Tyrannosaurus rex.  Perhaps as an extension activity you might challenge the class to do some independent research to find out about the dinosaurs we feature in our speed stacking games.

Dinosaur Themed Speed Stacking Game Labels

A great speed stacking memory game.

A great speed stacking memory game.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture above shows the set of speed stacking labels created by Everything Dinosaur.  There is a five stage, dinosaur themed food web, based on meat-eating dinosaurs, which is ideal for reinforcing learning when it comes to teaching about food chains, herbivores, carnivores and so forth.  In addition Everything Dinosaur team members have added an eight stage, dinosaur sizing, speed stacking game.  Can the children stack the plastic cups in the correct order?

To access dinosaur themed learning resources, toys and games: Visit Everything Dinosaur.

Resources Required

  • Plastic cups
  • Sheet of labels (Everything Dinosaur supplies various sets of labels on the company’s “dinosaurs for schools” website).
  • Sticky tape to stick the labels to the bottom of the plastic cups.
  • A stop watch or an Ipad, Smart phone or such like to time how long each child takes to stack the cups correctly.

Record How Long it Takes for Each Child To Stack the Cups Correctly

Time how long it takes to stack the cups correctly.

Time how long it takes to stack the cups correctly.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The class can be split into teams to encourage small group work.  The children can take turns to stack the cups and measure the time taken.

Extension Ideas

  1. Challenge the class to carry out some independent research on the dinosaurs featured in the game
  2. Record the times taken by the children, can they work out the best way to display this data – tables, bar chart, graph etc?
  3. Can the children design their own speed stacking game with a dinosaur theme?

This is a simple and very easy activity for the classroom.  It helps develop hand/eye co-ordination and motor skills, as well as being an excellent way for children to memorise information.

For further information on dinosaur themed teaching resources and Everything Dinosaur’s work in schools and other outreach activities: Contact Everything Dinosaur.

For dinosaur themed teaching resources including models, sets of plastic dinosaurs as well as real fossils and fossil replicas ideal for craft activities: Learning – Dinosaur Themed Toys and Games.