Dinosaur O’Dell is the stage name for musician, storyteller, author and educator Kevin Dolan (hereafter referred to as “Dino.”)

As a former preschool and elementary music teacher, Dino utilizes music and stories as the medium for interaction and education. He most commonly works as a preschool and elementary assembly performer, but he is also a skilled workshop facilitator for both children and teachers.

Dino has a current roster teaching artist for Kansas City Young Audiences, St. Louis – Springboard to Learning, and Virginia – Arts for Learning. Dino has been chosen as an “Arts Partner” collaborator multiple times, working as an in-residence assembly performer for both the Grandview School District (Missouri) and the Kansas City, Kansas School District.

For the last ten years, in the states of Missouri and Kansas, Dino has served early childhood facilities teaching an accredited workshop about how to integrate music and stories into the early childhood classroom. In 2014 Dino won the Lighton Prize for Teaching Artist Excellence.

His CDs and books have also been honored by NAPPA, Parent’s Choice, and Story Monster Books. And according to School Library Journal “Learning hasn’t been this groovy since School House Rock.”

Eat Like a Rabbit, Swim in Peanut Butter, and Other Healthy Tricks (PS-K)
Dino is the “Nutrition Musician”, and he communicates his message about healthy food and an active lifestyle. The students meet a vegetable-eating rabbit who never stops jumping, an exercising cowboy who swims in peanut butter, and a space alien who tries and fails to fuel his spaceship with junk food. On your mark, get set, let’s get healthy!

Music Language and Math Out of this World: Music and Stories from Space (K-5)
Join Dino for an interactive music and storytelling show about outer space science. Out of this World includes a kid-friendly demonstration of gravity (Try eating a pizza when the pepperoni keeps floating away!); a song about meteors, meteoroids, and meteorites (Do you know the difference?); plus the story of Dino’s childhood hero, Neil Armstrong.

Around the World (K-3)
Join Dino on an adventure to all seven continents. Swim with piranhas, climb Mount Everest, and visit King Tut’s tomb as we learn about history, culture, geography and even cuisine. (Who loves pizza?) Join us for an interactive music and storytelling trip around the world.

$400 plus travel fees from Kansas City. (Group bookings are discounted.)

Educational activities that Dino can provide.

Assemblies
These are 45 minute interactive lesson plans built around specific content like outer space science, geography, or earth science. These assemblies utilize high-level performance techniques. But they are not just music and storytelling performances. Delivering content and requiring interactive processing, like analysis and ,brain-storming are educational techniques that are built into the assemblies. (Post-assembly worksheets for the teachers are included with these shows.)

Author Events
There are two author event’s, one is for preschool, it teaches the 5 Ws and includes age appropriate story-analysis. The other is for elementary school and is focused on one particular story, but delves deeply into space science. (See “Out of this World.”)

Workshops
There is a songwriting workshop (1-5 days) and a drumming workshop (4 days).

Workshops include a range of fees based on which option is chosen: $250-$1000.

Besides early childhood teacher trainings and keynotes for educational organizations, Dino has created a 10 minute performance/lecture that illustrates for the non-educator how play, environment and the interaction between those things are powerful tools for creating healthy learning, healthy humans and healthy communities.

In order to educate our general public about the importance of funding arts education and our public school systems this performance/lecture is complimentary.

Performance/Program Recordings

The Planets

Around the World

Dino O’Dell Resume

• Download resume

Letter of Recommendation

• Download letter

Lesson Plan

• The Milky Way, Moons and Meteorites