Doing Dinosaurs

For the past two days we have been doing a study on D for dinosaurs. It wasn't an easy one to do, in my opinion, because so much information out there about dinosaurs doesn't line up with our Christian views. We did do some fun activities though, and the kids really enjoyed the unit overall.

Madison did some dinosaur addition using our dinosaur toys as visual aids.
(worksheet provided by www.tlsbooks.com)

I created this Dino Bones Math File Folder Game for Madison. She had to count the number of spots on each dinosaur and then write that number on them. Then for each bone equation, she had to count out the correct number of sticks to find the sum. She then had to match the sum with the correct dinosaur that had the number written on it.

There is also a subtraction version on it on the other side of the file folder that we haven't worked on yet.

(The idea for the file folder game came from http://filefolderfun.com/SubjectDinosaurs.html, but I did modify it a little)

We did a few more math worksheets - one set Madison had to determine what the missing number in the sequence was; the other worksheet she had to count the number of spots on the dinosaur and write that number in the lines.
(worksheets from www.makinglearningfun.com and www.tlsbooks.com)

We talked a little bit about extinction and fossils, then we created our own dinosaur fossil picture using pasta.

We glued sand to the picture as well to make it look like our fossils were being dug up in the dirt.
(idea from http://www.busybeekidscrafts.com/Dinosaur-Bones.html)

It's really not easy finding books about dinosaurs that line up with our Christian views! Our curriculum suggested one book called "What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs" by John Morris and Ken Ham, but I was unable to get it. I did find some info by Ken Ham online that I just read to the kids regarding when dinosaurs were really created (during Day 6 of creation with all the other land animals!). I checked out a few other books from the library and just skipped over the pages that I didn't agree with. One such book was "Dinosaur More!" by Henrietta Stickland. It had some interesting facts in it regarding specific dinosaurs (how big they got, what they ate, etc.) and I let the kids pick out a couple for us to read about. They both wanted the Stegosaurus. I then had them draw a picture of the Stegosaurus (see photo below).

We also made our foam lowercase "d" into a dinosaur.

Madison's Stegosaurus picture and another picture of a dinosaur hiding behind a house. We read the book "Danny and the Dinosaur" by Syd Hoff. In that book, the dinosaur and Danny play hide and seek. So I had the kids draw a picture of where they thought a dinosaur would be able to hide if they played hide and seek with one.

Our dinosaur lunch consisted of bagels for the bodies, strawberries for the plates and the heads, carrots for the necks, raisins for the legs, and broccoli for the trees that our dinosaurs were eating.

(idea from http://www.preschooleducation.com/cdinosaur.shtml)