Description
What our Dinos A to Z: Introduction to Dinosaurs lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Dinos A to Z: Introduction to Dinosaurs 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 dinosaurs. This lesson is for students in 2nd grade, 3rd grade, and 4th grade.
DINOS A TO Z: INTRODUCTION TO DINOSAURS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Introduction to Dinosaurs
The Dinos A to Z: Introduction to Dinosaurs lesson plan contains one content page. You’ve probably seen pictures of dinosaurs. Maybe you have watched a video or two about them. Have you visited a museum where their skeletons are? Dinosaurs are prehistoric reptiles. Prehistoric means before there was written history. The last dinosaurs lived millions of years ago.
Where does the word dinosaur come from? In 1841, a scientist named Richard Owens used the word dinosaur. The original word was dinosauria. It meant terrible lizard! But Owens thought differently. Not all dinosaurs were terrible. They weren’t all mean. Some ate only plants. Owens also thought that some were small, not huge. So he used the word to mean “fearfully great” instead of terrible. He was comparing the large size of dinosaurs to modern reptiles.
Dinosaurs ranged in size. Some were as large as an airplane! And some were as small as a chicken, or smaller! Some dinosaurs had feathers. Others had scales, plates, horns, or spikes. Just like animals today, dinosaurs came in all shapes and sizes.
They lived all over the earth for more than 150 million years. They became extinct, or died off, about 65 million years ago. Why? No one knows for sure. Some think the climate got too cold for them. Plants stopped growing. The dinosaurs who lived on plants didn’t have enough food. They starved. Then the meat eaters that depended on the plant eaters as their food died off as their food source disappeared. What remains of dinosaurs are fossils. Fossils are the remains of plants and animals that lived a long time ago. These special rocks are how scientists know what life was like millions of years in the past.
DINOS A TO Z: INTRODUCTION TO DINOSAURS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Dinos A to Z: Introduction to Dinosaurs 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 SEARCH ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
For this activity, students will complete a good old-fashioned word search! There are nine words for them to find. If you’d like, you could have students compete individually or in groups to finish the fastest. Fastest finisher(s) wins a prize.
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.
