Description
What our Dinos A to Z: Allosaurus lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Dinos A to Z: Allosaurus is a high-interest reading comprehension lesson plan. As such, students will practice various close reading and comprehension skills. In addition, they will learn some basic information allosauruses. This lesson is for students in 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th grade.
DINOS A TO Z: ALLOSAURUS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Allosaurus
The Dinos A to Z: Allosaurus lesson plan contains one content page. The Allosaurus (al·luh·soar·russ) was a large dinosaur. It could be as large as 40 feet tall. And it could run up to 21 miles per hour. This fierce creature had claws eight inches long to grab its prey. Once its prey was in its grasp, an Allosaurus would use its 70 razor-sharp teeth to rip off the prey’s flesh.
The word Allosaurus comes from Greek. It means “strange reptile.” When scientists first discovered the fossil remains of the dinosaur, the bones in its spine differed from other dinosaur fossils. Allosaurus fossils have been found in Tanzania, Germany, and four US states. These are Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and Montana. In fact, the Allosaurus is the official state dinosaur of Utah!
Paleontologists are not sure if the Allosaurus always hunted live prey. Some think it was a scavenger, feeding on injured or dead animals. One thing is for sure: it was a carnivore. No salads for this dinosaur! But how do scientists know what it ate? They know the Allosaurus was a carnivore by studying the fossils of its jaws. Scientists were able to identify the bite marks from an Allosaurus on the fossil of a Stegosaurus! The Allosaurus could open its jaws very wide. Its teeth were like knives, cutting through an animal’s tough hide. When biting its prey, it would yank its head back, ripping off chunks of flesh.
Allosauruses lived about 145 million years ago. Scientists think they were as large as a T-rex. The T-rex appeared 76 million years after the Allosaurus. Like its T-rex relative, the Allosaurus ran on two feet. It was a ferocious predator. It also had much longer and more powerful arms than a T-rex. The Allosaurus was
certainly a dinosaur to fear!
DINOS A TO Z: ALLOSAURUS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Dinos A to Z: Allosaurus lesson plan includes two worksheets: an activity worksheet and a practice worksheet. Each one will help students solidify their grasp of the material they learned throughout the lesson.
WORD FINDER ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For this activity, students will try to find as many words as they can using the letters in ALLOSAURUS. The worksheet provides an example. After they finish, students will write how many words they were able to find. They are welcome to use the back of the page if they need to.
REVIEW PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet requires students to answer a series of 5 questions. These questions all relate to the content pages, so students will need to refer to them for the answers.
