Ideas to create your own home schooling units on the dinosaur. Information on books, activities and science.
BASIC IDENTIFICATION
A good way to begin a dinosaur unit is to start with identifying, comparing, contrasting, and classifying dinosaurs. These activities touch on language (reading, spelling, and vocabulary), sorting, and research skills, as well as make a good introduction to other activities.
Dino-Lingo Project: Start by researching with student some of the Greek and Latin root words that are commonly found in dinosaur names. Make flash cards, each with a different root word on one side, and its English meaning on the other. As you explore new dinosaurs, pull out the root word cards that make up each one's name and lay them out. Turn each card over to see what the dinosaur would be called in English.
dino (terrible) saur (lizard) = dinosaur (terrible lizard)
tri (three) cera (horn) tops (face) = triceratops (three horned face)
veloci (speedy) raptor (plunderer) = velociraptor (speedy plunderer)
tyranno (tyrant) saurus (lizard) rex (king) = tyrannosaurus rex (tyrant lizard king)
micro (tiny) pachy (thick) cephalo (head) saurus (lizard) = micropachycephalosaurus (tiny thick-headed lizard)
Possible discussions/activities: How did certain dinosaurs earn their names? What interesting names (root combinations) can you come up with?
Dinosaur Classification: Get a good book or computer program that identifies specific dinosaurs. Make photo copies of some dinosaurs and write some details about them on the back of the page. Start sorting them into different categories: herbivores (plant eaters) and carnivores (meat eaters); bipeds (two-footed) and quadrupeds (four-footed); largest and the smallest, etc.
Dino-mobile Project: Take two wire hangers and put them together, holding the two top hooks together. Take the bottom part of one and twist inside the other, so that the bottoms criss-cross each other. Tape the two hooks up well with masking tape (this will keep them together, and protect the child from the sharp edge). Let the child pick out 10 favorite dinosaurs, preferably from different categories. Drawn an outline of the shape of the dinosaur and cut it out, or have the child do so if he is able. Write information about the dinosaur on the shape (name, size, classifications). Punch a hole in the top of the dinosaur cut outs and attach them to the hangers with yarn to display the information.
PUTTING DINOSAURS IN PERSPECTIVE
One difficulty for children is to conceptualize the size and shape of dinosaurs, as well as understand the time period in which dinosaurs existed. Spatial exercises such as these can also be incorporated into math projects, such as measurement of time and space.
Measuring Dinosaurs Activity: Take some yarn or string and a yard stick (or a meter stick) and measure your string, one yard (or meter) at at time, making a knot at each unit as a marker. Find out the sizes of various dinosaurs, from the smallest to the largest. Go to a wide-open space, such as a park or beach, on a day when there are no crowds. Have the child take one end of the string, and you (or another child) can take the other. Using the knots as guides, measure out various sized dinosaurs. Your child may be surprised at just how massive some of the dinosaurs were when she sees how far the distance between the head and the tail would be.
Field trip: Have your child look up the size of some of the smaller dinosaurs that can be compared in size and shape to common mammals: elephants, giraffes, ostriches, iguanas, etc. Then, take a field trip to the zoo and look for those animals. Try to imagine a dinosaur of that size moving around.
Dinosaur Time Line Project: Using a yard stick again, make a line on a sheet of poster or butcher paper. At the beginning of the line, write "248 MILLION BC: DINOSAURS EVOLVE." Approximately 2' 4" down the line, make a mark and write, "65 MILLION BC: DINOSAURS BECOME EXTINCT". Within the last inch at the end of the line, make another mark, and write: "8 - 5 MILLION BC: EARLY HUMANS EVOLVE." Mark the very end of the line, "TODAY." This simple visual will give children an idea of just how long ago, and for just how long, dinosaurs walked the Earth in comparison to humans.
Dinosaur Scale Models: Take the sizes of some of your favorite dinosaurs on the mobile and covert their size to a smaller scale (for example, 1 yard equals 1 inch). Make clay models, or cut outs from cardboard, of the dinosaurs to scale and compare them to each other. If you can, use another object, such as your house, car, or a tree in your yard, and create a scale model of it. Compare it to the size of the dinosaurs. Which dinosaurs could fit in your house or car? Which dinosaurs would be bigger than the tree?
FUN WITH FOSSILS:
How do archeologists learn so much about dinosaurs just from studying their bones? Find out with these activities.
Fossil Hunt: You'll need to do some preparation for the children to do these activities. Get some modeling clay, and a few clean bones (chicken bones, or leftover wings, from a recent dinner work well). Roll the clay out a couple of inches thick and cut it so it would fit in a shoe box. Make some imprints of the bones in the clay, the way a dinosaur bone may have made an imprint in the mud. Remove the bones. Dry the modeling clay and put it in a shoe box. Carefully cover it with sand or soil and let it settle for a couple of days. Give the child some plastic spoons and brushes (such as paint or make up brushes). Let them dig and find the imprints, teaching them to be careful so not to disturb any possible findings. When they've uncovered them, fill the imprints with some plaster of paris and let them dry. Remove the plaster, and the child will have their fossils to study.
Model Fun: Try to find some dinosaur model kits to work on, usually available at toy stores or stores that sell educational supplies.
Field Trip: Visit a museum that has a dinosaur exhibit. If there isn't one in your town, go on a virtual tour at a natural history museum online.
ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES
Readings:
"If The Dinosaurs Come Back," By Bernard Most
Would any of these ideas be possible? Some might be fun!
"Danny and the Dinosaur," by Syd Hoff
What would it be like to have a pet dinosaur?
"Dinosaurs Alive!" by Dennis R. Shealy
A wonderfully illustrated book in simple language.
Discussion Topics: evolution, extinction, what did the Earth look like/feel like/sound like/smell like 200 million years ago, what would really happen if man and dinosaurs co-existed, how we guess a dinosaurs color/skin type/sounds they made, if a dinosaur would make a good pet.
Art Project: Make a dino-rama, or a diorama featuring plastic dinosaurs in a setting that shows what the Earth may have looked like when the dinosaurs lived.
