One of the great things about dinosaur toys is that they provide ample opportunities to teach your child something new. One of the first games I played with my son involved counting. I'd ask him questions like "How many horns does Triceratops have?", "How many fingers does Tyrannosaurus have on each hand?", How many feet does Ankylosaurus have?", "How many spikes does Stegosaurus have on its tail?", etc. My son would happily start counting and I was happy to teach him when he needed help.
Counting isn't just about reciting a series of numbers. When you start to count objects, you need to do it in an organized way. Counting dinosaur fingers is somewhat easy because it's just like counting your own fingers. Kids learn to point to each finger as they count. Counting dinosaur legs is a bit trickier with 4 legged dinosaurs. You could count them clockwise, counterclockwise, back to front, front to back, left to right, right to left, or even zig-zag. You need to make sure you count every leg and also be sure that you don't count any legs twice. Being able to spatially organize objects in your head is a skill that needs to be learned. Dinosaurs provide a variety of objects in different spatial configurations that are ripe for counting: fingers, claws, horns, spikes, toes, etc.
Now you can ask my son, "How many fingers does a Pachycephalosaurus have?", "How many claws does Diplodocus have on its front feet?", or "How many horns does a Kosmoceratops have?", and he can give you the correct answers without looking at his dinosaur toys. It turns out that he didn't just learn to count, he learned a lot about dinosaur anatomy as well. It actually shocked me that he knew how many fingers Carnotaurus had. I didn't know myself! That was something he learned all on his own. He must have been studying his Carnotaurus figure and counting behind my back!
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