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Museum Educator-led Programs
Pre & Post Visit Resources
Discovering Dinosaurs

Grades 1-2

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Program Description and Frameworks
Program Outline
Key Terms and Concepts
Classroom Activities
Print and Web Resources
Go to the Gallery of Dinosaurs and Paleontology page

Click here for printable version of all resources listed above

In this introductory program, students learn about dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures that inhabited the earth millions of years ago. Compare rocks and fossils, discover identifying features of different prehistoric creatures, and excavate dinosaur bone replicas.

Location: Discovery Room and Dinosaur Gallery
Length: One hour
Grades: 1 - 2

Massachusetts Frameworks
Science and Technology/Engineering Strand 2: Life Science Standards

New York Standards
Standard 4 Science The Living Environment

Reptile Characteristics
An introductory discussion of characteristics that reptiles, including dinosaurs, share.

Dinosaur Characteristics
A discussion of the characteristics that make dinosaurs different from other reptiles and other prehistoric creatures.

Dino/Not Dino Identification Game
The whole class plays a game using the characteristics just learned. The class views pictures of a variety of prehistoric creatures, with the challenge of differentiating the dinosaurs from the non-dinosaurs.

Investigate Fossils
A hands-on introduction to fossils of all kinds; students learn how fossils are made and how they compare with their living counterparts.

Gallery Hunt
Students are given a picture of a dinosaur on a clue card. The students search for their dinosaur, and its accompanying fossil, in the Dinosaur Gallery. Once identified, the fossil is then drawn and labeled.

Dinosaur Dig
Dig for dinosaur bone replicas in the Museum's simulated excavation area.

Dinosaurs were a group of reptiles that lived millions of years ago and are now extinct. Mammals, amphibians, fish, and other reptiles were alive at the same time as the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs:

• Did not fly (although many scientists think birds evolved from dinosaurs). Did not live under water. Had scaly skin and laid eggs.
• Walked with their legs under their bodies (knees and elbows did not stick out to the side).
• Some dinosaurs were carnivores and some were herbivores.

Fossils:

• Are the remains or traces of something once alive, but no longer living. Can be the remains of a living thing (like a tooth), or an impression (imprint) left behind by a living thing (like a foot print). Can be from many different animals and plants, not just dinosaurs.
• Are hard because they contain minerals, the "building blocks" of rocks.

Key Terms Used in the Program
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• Reptile
  a group of air-breathing animals that relying on sources outside of their bodies, such as the sun, for heating and cooling their bodies, most of whom lay eggs and have skin covered with scales or bony plates.
• Dinosaur
  a group of prehistoric reptiles that are extinct (are no longer living). They did not live in water or fly and walked with legs and arms under their bodies. Unlike lizards and crocodiles, their knees and elbows did not stick far out to the sides.
• Fossil
  remains or traces of something that was once alive and is preserved by minerals (the building blocks of rocks).
• Replica
  a close reproduction or copy.
• Carnivore
  an animal that eats other animals.
• Herbivore
  a plant-eating animal.
• Paleontologist
  a scientist who studies prehistoric life through the examination of fossilized remains.

Assessment: Make a K-W-L Goal Sheet
As a class, make a K-W-L chart. Include these three columns or sections…What I Know about Dinosaurs…What I Want to Learn about Dinosaurs…What I Learned about Dinosaurs. Pre-visit, have the students brainstorm ideas for the first two columns of the chart. Post-visit, ask the students to share what they have learned and fill in the third column.

Dino Dioramas
Ask students to pick one particular dinosaur to focus on. Encourage them to research what their dinosaur was like, including what it ate, where it lived, and what other plants and animals it might have encountered. Students can then create a small sculpture of their dinosaur out of clay. Shoeboxes make an excellent dinosaur habitat (ask a local shoe store to save boxes for you). Students can design a prehistoric habitat for their dinosaur inside their box using colored paper, pipe cleaners, colored clay, paint and markers.

Dino Tracking
Before class, use several different plastic dinosaurs to create dinosaur tracks in clay. Roll out clay into slabs and have children press tracks from the plastic dinosaurs into the clay. Wash and dry dinosaurs. Set up tracks at "stations" around the room. Group students so that each group has a plastic dinosaur. Their job is to find the tracks made by their dinosaur. When everyone is finished, discuss how students knew which track belonged to their dinosaur. (For example: the size, the number of feet touching the ground, the number of toes, or the distance between the legs). Explain to students that paleontologists use the very same techniques to study real dinosaur tracks.

Make Your Own "Fossil" Imprint
Discuss the difference between a fossil remain (when part or all of a living thing becomes a fossil) and an imprint (an impression left behind by a living thing that becomes a fossil, like a foot print). To help students understand the concept of an imprint, give each student a small ball of play dough or clay. Hand out an object to each student to press into the clay or play dough to create an impression. Shells, chicken bones, plastic fish, plastic insects, or even plastic all work well. Then set the impressions aside to dry.

Use the Berkshire Athenaeum’s on-line catalogue to search for these print resources in Central/Western Massachusetts.

Print Materials For Students

Aliki (Aliki Brandenberg). Digging Up Dinosaurs. NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988. A charming, cartoon-illustrated book that leads the reader through all the steps of paleontology, from locating and excavating fossils, to cleaning and studying them, to the final assembly of a skeleton in a Museum.

Mansell, Dom. If Dinosaurs Came to Town. NY: Little, Brown and Company, 1991. Suppose that dinosaurs hadn't all died? What if a whole herd of dinosaurs came lumbering into your town and jammed up traffic, terrorized the beaches, took over the farmland, invaded your bedroom? It would be FANTASTIC...or would it?

Schnetzler, Pattie. Ten Little Dinosaurs. Denver: Accord Publishing Ltd., 1996. The silly escapades of ten different dinosaurs are described in rhyming verses. This book has a pair of large googlie eyes that add humor to every page.

Shields, Carol Diggory. Saturday Night at the Dinosaur STOMP. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 1997. A prehistoric rock'n'roll party! Many different kinds of dinosaurs gather to twist, twirl, and stomp at a festive, Saturday-night celebration.

Wahl, Jan and Bob Doucet. The Field Mouse and the Dinosaur Named Sue. Cartwheel Books, 2000. This engaging story about a displaced field mouse walks readers through the process of assembling the skeleton of the now-famous T. rex named Sue at the Chicago Field Museum.

Wise, William. Dinosaurs Forever. NY: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2000. A collection of humorous poems about dinosaurs.

Print Materials For Educators

Benton, Mike. Walking with Dinosaurs. New York: DK Publishing, 2000. Clear explanations of how paleontologists know what they know, and how the television show Walking with Dinosaurs was created.

Courtenay-Thompson, Fiona and Mary Lindsday (Ed.) The Visual Dictionary of Dinosaurs (Eyewitness Visual Dictionaries). New York: Dorling Kindersly Publishing, Inc., 1993. A good basic introduction to the dinosaur groups and species, including plenty of images.

Dixon, Dougal et al. The Macmillan Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures. NY: Macmillan, 1988. This book contains a huge number of fantastic color illustrations. It depicts and describes many species of dinosaurs and lesser-known species of prehistoric reptiles, amphibians, birds, fish, and mammals.

Lambert, David. The Ultimate Dinosaur Book. New York: Dorling Kindersley (In association with The Natural History Museum, London), 1993. A terrific overview of dinosaurs and their time, followed by "profiles" of specific dinosaurs and dinosaur groups.

Norell, Mark A., Eugene S. Gaffney, and Lowell Dingus. Discovering Dinosaurs In the American Museum of Natural History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995. A very informative book with illustrations of fossils in the Museum's collection. It addresses the toughest questions and controversies about dinosaurs, like, were dinosaurs cold-blooded or warm-blooded and did birds evolve from dinosaurs. It also describes the techniques used by paleontologists to study prehistoric life.

Web Materials for Students

Enchanted Learning
This is a fun, educational site for audiences as young as preschool. Users will find user-friendly sites about dinosaurs and fossils along with craft projects and printable coloring pages. Rated A+ by Education-World.com. Nature of New

England
Illustrations of dinosaurs discovered in North America.

Zoom Dinosaurs
This is an on-line hypertext book about dinosaurs. It is designed for students of all ages and levels of comprehension with information on dinosaurs, extinction, fossils and more.

Web Materials for Educators

NASA Classroom of the Future
This site offers online references, links, activities, crafts, and lesson plans.

Fossil Resource
Two Guys Fossils is a supplier of real fossils, replicas, posters, and dinosaur models, with many items available at reasonable prices. Fossils come with information about the species and the location where the specimen was found.

National Geographic News
A search of the archived news stories will yield many interesting articles about new findings in paleontology in a brief, easy-to-understand format. Smithsonian

National Museum of Natural History's Department of Paleobiology: Dinosaur Exhibits
This site provides information about specific species of dinosaurs and includes images of fossils that are in the Museum's collection. Other features include a Top 10 list debunking common misconceptions, an article on field work, information about prehistoric life forms other than dinosaurs, and a step-by-step look at how dinosaur skeletons are reconstructed for Museum display.

University of California Museum of Paleontology
If you are looking for specific information, using their search function is very helpful, as this site has many different kinds of resources to offer, including online exhibits, a site called Dinobuzz covering exciting new research and controversial topics, and modules for educators on topics like Understanding Evolution, Explorations Through Time, and Learning from the Fossil Record.

 

The Institute of Museum and Library Services, an independent Federal grant- making agency dedicated to creating and sustaining a nation of learners by helping libraries and museums serve their communities supports the Berkshire Museum.

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