Does your kid love dinosaurs? January 30 is National Draw a Dinosaur Day. This is a perfect activity to bring some fun to a late January winter day. Even if your kids aren’t into dinosaurs, drawing one can be a fun challenge, even a competition. And the results can be as varied as each individual doing the drawing. You might wonder how this is even a holiday – seriously, Draw a Dinosaur Day? Keep reading to find out how this day came to be and to get some educational ideas for National Draw a Dinosaur Day.
So how did this even become an official day? It goes back to 2007, when Todd Page was bored in anthropology class. He was doodling through the lecture, and he decided to draw a dinosaur. When he found it to be especially fun, he challenged his classmates to draw dinosaurs. He was right, and everyone had a blast drawing dinosaurs. And so, Todd established this special day to just have fun and use our imaginations to draw some dinosaurs. It became popular through social media, and people post their Dino drawings on National Draw a Dinosaur Day. They just upload their drawing and use the hashtag #DrawADinosaurDay.
That’s the history of this fun day. We can have some fun drawing dinosaurs too, and we can find ways to learn and build some thinking skills while we’re at it.
Educational Ideas for National Draw a Dinosaur Day
Learn about Dinosaurs
We don’t have to stick with drawing dinosaurs. This would also be a great time to look up some videos or head to the library to find some information about dinosaurs. National Today lists 5 types of dinosaurs that are especially fun to draw, and I bet these dinos would be fun to learn about as well. There’s the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Indominus Rex, the Triceratops, the Mosasaurus, and the Velociraptor.
To take it further, My Signing Time has several shows to help your kids learn about dinosaurs or to learn with dinosaurs. You can find our dinosaur shows here.
Use Your Imagination
You could draw a specific type of dinosaur, or maybe you could make up your own new dinosaur. Either way, putting your ideas on paper requires you to use your imagination. We could even challenge our kids to pretend they are in the Jurassic Park lab, creating a new dinosaur to awe our visitors. Let’s help our kids be imaginative and to draw the best dinosaur they can think of, real or imaginary.
Get Creative
Help your creative kids to think of ways to really make their dinosaur drawing look great. For example, we can think about things like varying colors and textures that can help our dinosaurs look more realistic or exciting.
As we’re thinking about creativity, we can learn some signs to go along with what we’re doing. Take a look at the color section or the creativity section of our free Signing Time Dictionary. Choose some signs to learn as you get creative with your dinosaur drawings for National Draw a Dinosaur Day!
So, if you need an easy mid-winter activity to perk things up at your house, try drawing some dinosaurs for National Draw a Dinosaur Day. Maybe even share them on social media (#DrawADinosaurDay). And while you’re at it, see if your kids can explore some new things or learn a few new skills.