About Dinos

Dinos is a no-ads, dinosaur-naming game for children aged 4 to 7. We show a big, colourful picture of a dinosaur at the top of the screen — a Tyrannosaurus, a Triceratops, a Stegosaurus, a Velociraptor — and put four dinosaur names below it. Your child taps the name that matches the picture. Get it right, score a star. Endless turns, no fail state, gentle pace.

Dinos is part of the Tadpole Games family. Where Fredle teaches phonics and Flagle introduces the world’s countries, Dinos introduces the dinosaurs every child loves — one at a time. It pairs a picture with the name, so a pre-reader can match by picture and an early reader can sound the word out. Because no one has ever photographed a living dinosaur, each picture is an artist’s reconstruction — a careful, science-based painting of what the animal looked like when it was alive.

Who Dinos is for

• Reception (age 4–5) — just starting to put names to the dinosaurs they love in books, toys and films. Two of the four names are usually easy to rule out, so the child still gets to think and pick.
• Year 1 (age 5–6) — building vocabulary and noticing how dinosaurs differ. Learning that the one with three horns is a Triceratops, and the one with plates down its back is a Stegosaurus.
• Year 2 (age 6–7) — ready for the trickier names (Parasaurolophus, Therizinosaurus, Pachycephalosaurus) and starting to spot a dinosaur from its shape, spikes and teeth.
• Home-schoolers, tutors and grandparents who want a five-minute dinosaur warm-up with no ads and no fuss.

How it works

• A colourful picture of a dinosaur appears at the top of the screen.
• Four dinosaur names sit in a 2×2 grid below.
• Your child taps the name that matches the picture. Three horns and a big neck frill → Triceratops.
• Right answer? The tile flashes green, a star is added, and a brand new dinosaur flips into place.
• Wrong answer? The tile wobbles red and stays struck-through; the picture stays put, and they can try one of the other three. Endless turns — no losing.

Why a colourful picture (not a skeleton)

Dinosaurs are extinct, so there are no photographs of them — only fossils and museum skeletons. A bare skeleton is hard for a young child to recognise, so every Dinos picture is a life reconstruction: an artist’s painting of the living animal, with skin, colour and shape worked out from the bones. The reconstructions are sourced from Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons licence — the same open library that encyclopaedias use.

That ordering matters. Picture-recognition comes first; the name comes second; the joy of spotting the same dinosaur in a book or a museum comes third — said by the grown-up alongside. By the time your child can read “Stegosaurus”, they already know what a Stegosaurus looks like, and what a Triceratops looks like, and how to tell them apart.

How to play with your child

• Say the dinosaur name aloud each round. “That’s a Brachiosaurus. Look at that long neck — it ate leaves from the tops of the trees.” Repetition is the lesson.
• Talk about what each dinosaur was like. “Stegosaurus had plates down its back.” “Velociraptor was small and fast with a big claw.” “Tyrannosaurus had tiny arms and huge teeth.”
• Spot them in books and museums. Dinos works best as the indoor half of a habit — the other half is “look, that’s the one from the game” at the dinosaur hall.
• Relate it to something they know. “This is the one from your toy box — it’s a Triceratops.”
• Five minutes a day. Short and warm beats long and earnest. The stars only go up.

Frequently asked questions

Can my child fail?

No. There is no timer, no lives, and no fail state. A wrong tap just gives a gentle wobble — the picture stays in place and they can try one of the other names. Stars only go up.

Which dinosaurs does Dinos cover?

Dinos starts with the dinosaurs a child is most likely to know from books and toys, and unlocks more as they earn stars:

• Tier 1 — from the first round. The famous eight: Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Velociraptor, Brachiosaurus, Spinosaurus, Diplodocus, Ankylosaurus.
• Tier 2 — unlocks at 3 stars. Eight more favourites: Allosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Pteranodon, Brontosaurus, Iguanodon, Pachycephalosaurus, Apatosaurus, Compsognathus.
• Tier 3 — unlocks at 10 stars. Eight well-known dinosaurs: Carnotaurus, Dilophosaurus, Gallimimus, Deinonychus, Archaeopteryx, Plateosaurus, Styracosaurus, Therizinosaurus.
• Tier 4 — unlocks at 22 stars. Eight trickier dinosaurs: Giganotosaurus, Baryonyx, Protoceratops, Maiasaura, Coelophysis, Edmontosaurus, Kentrosaurus, Oviraptor.
• Tier 5 — unlocks at 40 stars. Six challenge dinosaurs for Year 2: Microraptor, Amargasaurus, Concavenator, Suchomimus, Utahraptor, Sauropelta.

Each new tier comes with a small celebration so your child knows new dinosaurs have appeared. Stars only go up — the tiers do not reset on a wrong answer. (Pteranodon was a flying reptile rather than a true dinosaur, but it lived in the same age and every dinosaur fan knows it, so it’s in.)

What if my child can’t read yet?

That’s the right age to start. Dinos uses only four answers per round, two of which a parent can quickly rule out by shape — horns, plates, a long neck. A wrong tap is welcome — it’s how the matching click happens. Read each name aloud the first few times; by the tenth round your child will be tracking the word on the tile, not just the picture.

More from Tadpole Games

• Doggies — the same game for dog breeds: a real photo of a dog, four breed names, tap the right one.
• Kitties — the same game for cat breeds: a real photo of a cat, four breed names, tap the right one.
• Fredle — a daily phonics word puzzle for UK children aged 4 to 7.
• Flagle — tap the flag that matches the famous landmark in the middle.

Picture credits

Every Dinos picture is an artist’s reconstruction from Wikimedia Commons, used under a Creative Commons licence (CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA) or in the public domain. Per-picture attribution to the artist is recorded in /dinos/CREDITS.txt in the source repository. Thank you to the palaeoartists and the Wikimedia community for putting these reconstructions into the commons.