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Friday, April 13, 2012

Dynamic Dinosaurs

Cover of the book "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight"

Cover of the book "How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You?"

It's great to use stories that the kids can act out as you read.  The illustrations are so colorful and the topic is very stimulating for the children.  My pre-k students were spellbound!  I think both of these stories would also work wonderfully for kindergarten or first grade.  Here are two writing prompts that you can use after you read the book.

Dinosaur Writing Prompts

The song "Dinosaur Boogie" by Dr. Jean is fabulous for getting your students up and moving and teaching them dinosaur facts at the same time.  "5 Big Dinosaurs" by Jack Hartmann counts backwards from 5 and has a really rockin' beat that you can use as a fingerplay or as a subtraction song where 5 children ("dinosaurs") stand up in the front of the room and you take away 1 "dinosaur" each time the song tells you to.  "Dinosaur Hunt" by Aaron Glassman is pretty similar to "Going On A Bear Hunt" or "Going On A Lion Hunt."  It reviews position words and fits in perfectly with any dinosaur theme.

I also used large plastic dinosaurs and snap cubes to teach the concept of height and length.  We estimated how many blocks we thought the dinosaur would be, and then measured the actual height or length.  If you're working on patterning and have dinosaur manipulatives, here are a couple of fab pattern worksheets.

Pattern Dinosaur

If you're interested, I have a new Dinosaur Unit on TPT that contains guided reading books on multiple levels as well as worksheets that cover a variety of kindergarten-level and pre-k-level skills.

6 comments:

  1. Hi Sharon! I'm your newest follower. Thanks for stopping by my little blog. Stop back by to read my response to your comments & questions.
    Barb
    itsabouttimeteachers.blogspot.com

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  2. Hi Sharon! Thanks for visiting my blog. We got the Zoo to visit us by using their website. They are very good. Here is a link for you: http://www.marylandzoo.org/edzoocation/outreach/zoomobile-presentations/

    Nice to meet another Maryland teacher!

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  3. All your work is amazing! The farm unit is great. Cant wait to see your other TPT posts!

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  4. I'm your newest follower. Come check out my blog when you get a chance. I'm having 10 days of giveaways.
    www.missnelsonsgotthecamera.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  5. I just read that you are moving up to kindergarten next year! Congratulations!

    I would love to correspond with you regarding National Board Certification. The possibility of pursuing this has been on my mind for a few years.

    The dinosaurs look great, btw! :-)
    http://teachingwithsight.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oops! I copied your link into that comment, instead of mine--sorry!
    ReadWriteSing

    ReplyDelete