Any ideas for hands-on activities for a dinosaur unit?

Question

I am creating a science unit on Dinosaurs and I need some creative ideas. I want the lessons to teach many things:
-Circle of life
-Physical Characteristics
-Food Chain
-Behavior
-Predator vs. Prey
-Extinction
-Mesizoic (spelling) Era-life span of the dinosour species from beginning to end

And, I'm stuck. I need some more objectives as well as creative activities to teach them (and the objectives I listed above).

Anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

Let them make inexpensive, anatomically correct paper mache dinosaurs and a habitat. They can paint them. Suspend the finished products from the ceiling. You have the makings of a major project. Best of all, it is compatible with any age. They can label each dinosaur with facts. Give them plenty of time to do the proper research in the library or on the net. You can also provide them with a small reference library in your classroom.
You could let them do a mural on large sheets of butcher paper stapled to your walls depicting dinosaurs in their habitat.
You could assign one dinosaur to each student, letting them be the 'expert' on it. Then have them include their dinosaur in each project. They would have to discuss how the dinosaurs interacted, along with all your selected topics. Have a Socratic seminar!
If you have access to a movie camera, the sky is the limit. They can do anything from a documentary to an episode of 'The Crockadorous Hunter.' Humor is a big part of keeping their interest. Cavemen are popular on TV. Maybe you could do a newscast with cavemen announcing, "This just in from the Associated Press in what will one day be Mesopotamia: The dinosaurs have now been extinct for x amount of millions of years. We go now to Ug, who is on the scene at the latest volcano eruption...sorry, we are having technical difficulties. Ug was knocked in the head by fallen rocks, but good news, psychics predict remnants of his stone neclace will be will be dug up by contruction workers around the year 2010."
You could have them do a survey on their peers at lunch or before school - what does the average student know about dinosaurs? If your survey shows that the student population needs a few tips, you could see if the principal will give your students permission to do a presentation to the school in an assembly.
You are in for a lot of fun with this fabulous topic.

Answer 2

How old are the kids? They could make a map of the world how it supposedly was back then with the certain dinosaurs put on where they are from and their food (like plant life)could be put on the map. And they could place symbols that would indicate the theoretical natural disasters that wiped them out on the world map. It would be cool if the world map was really big so everybody could see it in the class really well. I think that would be fun.

Answer 3

From one teacher to another - BRILLIANT topic.
- People are DIFFERENT - T-Rex co-survived with Brontosaurus (not sure spelling)
- Space and meteors - my 5yr old grand-daughter explained to the speaker at a science exhibition that you can't have men AND dinosaurs because a METEOR hit the Earth, caused a an Ice age which wiped out the dinosaurs way before man.
- this leads to CLIMATE - ice, snow,

Of course it also leads to that school staple - making a solar system from polystyrine balls but add metoers.
- History - space - one day they will see 'Hayley's Comet'.
- this leads to CLIMATE - ice, snow,
- REQUIREMENTS for life - oxygen from trees which need Sun (or is that your food chain one?)
- Study of cartoons (general MEDIA study) - unreality of cartoons e.g.'Flintstones' cartoon impossible.
- If old enough students could learn a bit of LATIN and study 'etymology' the study of the source of words especially word endings (ous ending of many dinosaur names) and bronto - ancient Greek for thunder.

Answer 4

I don't know if this is what you are looking for but you can get like a sand box and get sand. barry bones in ther and have the kids dig them up like archologists do. they learn the types of dinosaurs by identifying them well having fun. Hope this helps.