Dinosaur Ideas

1) Teaching Herbivores
-Song: If you know the letter h/h is for herbivore (to the tune of "If You're Happy and You know It")

Verse 1
If you know the letter h show me now (kids make the lowercase h with bodies)
If you know the letter h show me now
If you know the letter h, and you know just how
to show me with your bodies do it now
(kids sing the song and every time they make the letter h they do it silently or can make the "h" sound)


Verse 2
h is for herbivores, they eat plants
h is for herbivores, they eat plants
herbivores have four legs, armor for safety,
they have flat teeth to eat plants
(variation, you could always substitute "herbivores" for h words that they know. Example, grade K kids can come up with hand, hat, hot, hold, handle)

-Transition: make the letter h with your bodies, use the long part of the h to reach for plants high and low (like an Apatosaurus)

2) Teaching Carnivores
-Carnivore/Meat-Eater Song (to the tune of Tingeleo)
Carnivores! They like to eat meat.
Tyrannosaurus Rex! uh oh! He is a carnivore.
He has sharp teeth, he has sharp claws,
He likes to eat meat.
He has a big head, He has fast legs,
He is a carnivore.

Guarantee, they will know the characteristics of Tyrannosaurus Rex/Carnivores. There are so many ways of substituting Carnivore for T-Rex, Velociraptor for T-Rex, etc. Decide what you need to teach first.

3) Teaching Both Herbivores and Carnivores (taken from a teaching artist's planning form!)
-Read "The Little Stegosaurus" by ?? I'll wait to hear from the TA
-As kids, based on pictures, what do the dinosaurs eat?
-Ask how would an herbivore behave? How would a carnivore behave? Each student acts out either an herbivore or carnivore.
-Students write a short story about something they acted out.

4) Looking at skeletons, differentiating between herbivores and carnivores
They already know the characteristics of each. You have made a chart that you have written herb. characteristics in one column, and same for carnivore characteristics.

-Have printouts of different dinosaur skeletons and paste them neatly onto a bright piece of cardstock paper.

-Break students into groups, each group receives one of these pictures.

-They must decide in their groups if this is an herbivore or carnivore. They then act it out and the other groups have to guess what it is. Show the picture and see who is correctly.

5) Cooking ideas
-Dinosaur Dig (teaches how dinosaurs were found, bones, fossils, paleontologist)
-Omnivore Salad
-Herbivore Salad

6) Adopt-a-Dinosaur
-Look in ALLL CD under Special Projects/Birds/Adopt a Bird; in a nutshell: making a stuffed dinosaur with craypas on brown paper. Kids study their dinos and write about it.

IF YOU HAVE SOMETHING, SHARE IT PLEASE! Books, pre- and post activities, songs, process, logistics, tips and tricks, etc. Some people are new, some are just starting, some are finishing.

Thanks.