Dinosaur Unit Study

Knowing that many of you reading this are homeschooling as well, I thought it might be fun to share our self-made unit studies from time to time. That way, we can share a whole week's worth or two sometimes of lesson plans.

I opted to do a dinosaur unit with Katie for the last week and a half. I planned for just a week, but since she was so interested, we continued a little longer.

Here are some of the titles I used for good coloring pages, ideas, and sorting/ matching cards:

Learn About Dinosaurs Coloring Book published by Frank Schaffer.
Dinosaurs from the Primary Theme Series by Creative Teaching Press.
The Mailbox January book for grades 1-3 by The Education Center.
- this book also has ideas and pages for Martin Luther King Day, whales, polar animals, and penguins. We will next be doing a unit on Arctic animals, so it will come in handy again.

Books to read-aloud:
Fossils Tell of Long Ago by Aliki
Digging Up Dinosaurs by Aliki
What Happened to the Dinosaurs? by Franklyn Branley
Did Dinosaurs Have Feathers? by Kathleen Zoehfeld
Dinosaur Bones by Aliki

Dinosaur Hunters by Kate McMullan

Dinosaur Babies by Kathleen Zoehfeld

Dinosaurs Big and Small by Kathleen Zoehfeld

Where to Look for a Dinosaur by Bernard Most

It Could Still Be a Dinosaur by Allan Fowler

Dinosaur Time by Peggy Parish

My Visit to the Dinosaurs by Aliki

The Day of the Dinosaur by Stan & Jan Berenstain

Dinosaurs Beware by Marc Brown

Dinosaur and other Prehistoric Animal Fact Finder by Michael Benton

Craft Ideas:

We sculpted dinosaurs from Crayola Model Magic. And also made fossils with seashells and other objects in flattened model magic.

We planned to do dinosaur dioramas, but Nick broke the shoeboxes, so maybe we will make Arctic habitats once I can get my hands on some boxes.

We made dinosaur tracks by taking dinosaur toys and putting their feet in paint and then stamping on paper.

Other ideas:

We played matching games with dinosaur cards that I reproduced and then colored.

We also sorted these cards into dinosaur categories: plant eater/ meat eater. Small/ big.

We had a map where we marked where various dinosaur bones were found.

We played lots with dinosaurs that we had in the house. Katie liked grouping them by type and giving the bigger mommy dinosaurs matching baby dinosaurs.