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Self-guiding in the Galleries
Pre-During-Post Visit Resources
Gallery of Dinosaurs and Paleontology

Grades PreK - K

Scroll down the page to find items on the menu below or click on a link to jump to an item.

During Your Visit
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Things You Don't Want to Miss
Discussion Questions
Activities
Go to the Gallery of Dinosaurs and Paleontology page

Before and After Your Visit
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Important Terms and Concepts
Activities
Print and Web Resources

	Apatosaurus Femur This is a life-size replica of a leg bone that helped carry one of the largest land animals ever to walk the earth. Weighing up to 25 tons, this plant-eating, long-necked dinosaur lived 150 million years ago in the western United States and reached a length of 69 feet!
	Stegosaurus Plate This replica allows visitors to feel all of the bumps and grooves on a Stegosaurus' plate. The plate belonged to a 30 foot, 2 ton animal that lived about 150 million years ago. There is some debate about the primary function of Stegosaurus' plates, but they were most likely an early form of climate control, allowing the large plant eater to regulate temperature. Undoubtedly they also provided some defense and may have attracted potential mates.
	Dinosaur Dig With goggles in place and brush in hand, children are transformed into junior paleontologists, as they excavate replicas of dinosaur skeletons at this simulated excavation site. Nearby signs help visitors identify the bones they uncover.
	Dino Den A cozy spot to play with dinosaur puppets and figures, read picture books, and piece together puzzles.

Here are some questions for teachers, chaperones and students to think about while visiting the exhibit.

• Which dinosaur is your favorite? Why?
• How do we know what we know about dinosaurs?
• How are fossils formed?
• What's the difference between a fossil and a rock?
• Were people and dinosaurs living at the same time?
• How can you tell a dinosaur from other prehistoric animals?

Compare and Contrast
The dinosaur gallery's walls are painted with life size dinosaurs. After observing the walls, have students make statements comparing themselves to different dinosaurs, or comparing and contrasting two dinosaurs. For example, "The Apatosaurus is bigger than me, " or "The Velociraptor is smaller than the Triceratops."

Dino Hunt!
Have students, working with partners, go on a scavenger hunt. Click here for a printable page of items to search for. You can give each student a copy of the page and ask them to circle each item as they find it in the gallery, or you can give each pair of students one item to search for at a time: simply cut the page into strips, so that each item can be given out individually. Click here for complete directions/worksheet.

You may want to familiarize your students with the following terms before your visit to the museum.

• Dinosaur
  a group of land-dwelling reptiles who lived on earth and became extinct (are no longer alive) long before human beings existed.
• Fossil
  remains or traces of something that was once alive, preserved by minerals (the building blocks of rocks).

Chocolate Chip Cookie Excavation
Give each student a chocolate chip cookie, and encourage them to use skewers, toothpicks, and plastic spoons to "excavate" the chips from their cookie before eating it.

Dino Puppets
Students can make their own dinosaur puppets out of paper bags. Put one arm inside the bag and use your hand to open and close your dinosaur's mouth. The bottom of the bag becomes the dinosaur's face. Use markers, colored paper, and googly eyes to decorate your bag. Don't forget important dinosaur features like horns (snow cone cups make great ready-made horns), plates, and teeth. Discuss with students what kind of teeth a meat-eater would have (sharp and slightly curved) and what kind of teeth a plant-eater would have (long, skinny, pencil-like teeth in the front and/or short, flat teeth [like our molars] on the sides).

Ten Little Dinosaurs
Read Ten Little Dinosaurs by Pattie Schnetzler aloud to the class. Then practice counting with this chant to the tune of "Ten Little Indians."

One little, two little, three little dinosaurs,
Four little, five little, six little dinosaurs,
Seven little, eight little, nine little dinosaurs,
Ten little dinosaur babies.

Assessment: Create a Dinosaur Word Chart
Before your visit to the Museum, ask the whole class to brainstorm what comes to mind when they think about dinosaurs. Write down and draw key words and ideas. Also encourage students to think about what questions they might like to ask while they are at the Museum. Repeat the exercise after your visit to see what has changed.

Suggested Print and Web Resources

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

Print and Web Materials for Students

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

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 googly eyes that add humor to every page.

Yolen, Jane. How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? New York: The Blue Sky Press, 2000. Dinosaurs bring humor to familiar good-night antics known by every child.

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.

Print and Web Materials for Educators

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 species and and classification, 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.

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.

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

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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