Description
What our Dinos A to Z: Ankylosaurus lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Dinos A to Z: Ankylosaurus 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 about ankylosauruses. This lesson is for students in 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th grade.
DINOS A TO Z: ANKYLOSAURUS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Ankylosaurus
The Dinos A to Z: Ankylosaurus lesson plan contains one content page. The Ankylosaurus (ang·kuh·luh·soar·russ) was as large as a tank! It lived in
what is now eastern Montana. Its name comes from the Greek word ankylos. Ankylos means hard or fused. You already know that saurus means lizard. Put them together, and you get hard lizard. And “hard lizard” perfectly describes this dinosaur!
The Ankylosaurus was an herbivore. (An herbivore eats only plants.) Its teeth were flat and leaf-shaped, perfect for chewing and eating plants. These dinosaurs lived along the shores. There, they could find the plants they liked to feed on.
Ankylosauruses weighed up to 10,000 pounds. That is about the same as four small cars. They were nearly 30 feet long and built low to the ground. They ambled on their muscular, squatty legs. You might think being a slow mover would make you a target for predators. But think again! An Ankylosaurus’s body was covered with rigid and stiff plates made of bone. It would swing its heavy, club-shaped tail if attacked by a predator. Its tail had enough force to easily crush the bones of predators. Protected by plates of bone armor and a club tail, the Ankylosaurus was not an easy meal for any predator.
The fossils of this dinosaur have been found on every continent except Africa. Ankylosauruses lived about 70 million years ago. Though a slowpoke, the Ankylosaurus was not a dinosaur other dinos wanted to mess with!
DINOS A TO Z: ANKYLOSAURUS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Dinos A to Z: Ankylosaurus 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.
COMPARE AND CONTRAST ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For this activity, students will compare and contrast the ankylosaurus to an alligator snapping turtle. First they will write features that make the two similar. Then they will write what makes the two animals different.
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.
