Red Light Green Light has been a favorite game in our house for a long time, and converting it to fit our dinosaur unit study seemed more than appropriate with our little T-rex and roaring around the living room!
While the teacher in me loves that this game helps kids work on large motor skills and social skills, the parent in me loves that it really gets the wiggles out!
I’ve written out how we like to play, and have included some variations to keep your little dinos on their toes – literally!
Dinosaur Red Light, Green Light! Game
Players – 1 (+ an adult) to as many as you like!
First, find a large, open area to safely run and jump. If you like, add a path or track for kids to run around. We mostly play this indoors when it’s cold, but it’d be a perfect playground activity too!
To play, designate a caller, or a person to call out the directions. Have all other players start at one point or line. The caller can begin by shouting one of three directions: red light, green light, or yellow light.
“Red Light” = FREEZE (stop) like you’re hiding from a big dinosaur!
“Green Light” = “RUN” like a Velociraptor!
“Yellow Light” = STOMP slowly, like a big T-Rex!
Take some time to teach the kids what each light means, and pretty soon they’ll get the hang of it and be stomping, racing and freezing like tiny, crazy dinosaurs. 😀
For some fun variations, try these:
- Call out only the dinosaur names instead of lights. For Red Light, use the command, “DINO ALERT!”
- Utilize some other commands with dinosaur names
- Blue Light = soar like a pterodactyl (pretend you’re flying with your arms out)
- Orange Light = curl up like an unhatched dinosaur egg
- Purple Light = walk like a brontosaurus (bear crawl on all fours)
- Pink Light = hop like you’re popping out of the dinosaur egg
- Make a path with sidewalk chalk, cones, mats or masking tape (indoors) for the game to be played on. This makes it easier for kids to stay in one area and not stray to another room or side of the playground/yard. It could also make the game more interesting, depending on what path you lay out!
- Add sounds to each command:
- Screech with “GREEN LIGHT”
- ROAR with “YELLOW LIGHT”
- “Shh!!” with “RED LIGHT”
This game is so simple and versatile, and the kids I work with always seem to love it!
I hope these ideas have helped to bring some fun movement ideas to your dinosaur unit study and your kids’ play time. Tune back in on Thursday for dinosaur field trip ideas, or check out my other dinosaur unit study posts here!
❤
a fresh brewed faith 