Looking at Dinosaur Bones

with Mrs. Starko's Kindergarten

The children have been playing with the dinosaurs in the classroom, they tell me, along with the castle play. Actually, the dinosaurs are really an extension of the dragons that populate our castles.

Today (Wednesday) I asked the children if some of them would like to help build an area that the dinosaurs could roam in. A group of four volunteered and eventually our work involved more children. Ramzy, Beth, Nolan, Fynn, and Gabby came with me to the science prep room to find rocks and other items that might be useful for a dinosaur habitat. We had first looked at some pictures of dinosaurs that I had taken at the Calgary Zoo. The children picked up rocks, pine cones, wood, bones and puzzles for Sam.

When we got back to the classroom the children decided to have a place for water, trees, rocks and the little rocks for the bottom. They also wanted something that would hold water. Sam joined us at this time and McKenzie was watching what we were doing. Ramzy began to take a tube and pour the small rocks inside it to make a kind of volcano. The bigger rocks were arranged first and the children worked hard to put together their habitat. The children then began to add the dinosaurs. The swimming reptiles were added to the water table.

A conversation started concerning the bones, Sam wondered if we could make bone pictures like the real dinosaurs.

S: Dinosaurs have real bones, but bugs don't.
F: They only have bones in their stomachs.

I will begin with small group discussions about dinosaurs as the children draw them. My first questions will have to do with the idea of the bones.  We will begin our look at dinosaurs from this spot.

From the children's interests in bones, the dinosaur dig site was created in the house corner. The children were encouraged to become paleontologists as they uncovered fossils as shown in the above kits. In the sand table, we had corn-cob bedding material covering a variety of bones. With a parent, two children would become paleontologist and go on a dinosaur dig. At this time, they weighed and measured a variety of bones, matching types to the human skeleton, and eventually creating the dinosaur bone pictures.

The children were interested in how bones fit into an animal. They had already had the human skeleton introduced into the dig site and had been comparing the bones that they had been digging with those in the human body. Using a book called Skeletons the children began drawing various and then trying to represent the bones within these animals. However, they were having difficulty representing the true animal shape. Therefore, I gave them the following outlines of various dinosaurs in which to draw their theories of how the bones fit together.

 

Other Dinosaur Representations

The children had been drawing a variety of dinosaur pictures. I chose to introduce the idea of creating many of the same original through the process of print-making.

 

A variety of dinosaur pictures were produced spontaneously with an assortment of media like crayons and felts. They were often accompanied by a story or the word dino.

We had learned many poems and songs about dinosaurs. Here is Miranda's spontaneous creation of the poem The Dinosaur Dinner.

It was time for the children to begin producing dinosaurs in clay. Dioramas were used to create habitats for their clay dinosaurs. We made theirs in shoe boxes.

Here are two difficult puzzles that groups of children worked on together.

 

 

The Dinosaur Dig Site

I became a paleontologist and joined a dig at the dinosaur bone bed. Here I collected bones that I would put together to make my dinosaur. I had to weigh and measure two bones. Here are my findings:

Bone #1 is this long: _____________________________

and weighs this many cubes: _______________________

Bone #2 is this long: ____________________________

and weighs this many cubes: _______________________


My dinosaur is a __________________________________________

I know that my dinosaur is a _________________________________

My dinosaur lays _________________________________________

Here is another fact about my dinosaur: ________________________

_____________________________________________________

I think the dinosaurs died out because: ________________________

_____________________________________________________

Here is a picture of me and the dinosaur I created: 

 

 

The children opted to create the cave of bones, a home for their dinosaur skeletons that they wanted to share with their parents for the Celebration of Learning.

 

Conversation:

J: Over 100 years the fossils have been working to turn themselves into rock. The sun makes them hot.
D: Bones went into water. When they dried up they turned into rock. When the bones are underground, maybe air pulls it up high so they don't have to dig.

 

Habitat:

The children discovered the word habitat when studying snakes in November. On their own, they have reapplied what they know to their new study of dinosaurs. Each day, the children created many different habitats that they shared with each other.

From Dinosaurs to Eggs:

Dinosaur families and eggs were another great interest of the children. Eggs became the focus for our next learning journey. Here are their representations of oviparous animals.