Dinosaurs!!

We had a reading story a few weeks ago about dinosaurs.  I knew this chapter was coming up back in December so I ordered a dinosaur dig set from the book order.  Man, I did not expect to have so much fun and spark such a competition with these things!  The class was divided into 2 teams and had to work together to dig the dinosaur bones out of the rock.  They used wooden picks to dig through the rock and paint brushed to dust the bones off.  Team A was digging up a T-Rex and Team B was unearthing a Triceratops.

How the set arrived

Team A working hard

Team A

Team A

Team B working hard

Team B

Team B

Team B

Team A

Once all of the pieces were dug out and dusted off the teams used water and paint brushes to get all of the bones clean.  It was very precise work- even using toothpicks to dig dirt out.

Team A finished their digging and cleaning first- there were more team members.  We worked together to build their T-Rex.  We discovered that a tail bone must have been left behind in the rock and accidentally thrown away (FAIL on my part!)...

Team B then finished cleaning their Triceratops bones and we tried putting their model together.  The T-Rex was the first time I had ever put something like this together and I may be a "one hit wonder"!  I cannot get this Triceratops together for the life of me!  When I am down to one piece left everything falls apart.  I may have to resort to super glue : /

I am using these dinosaurs as rewards for reading in January.  The top 2 readers for Accelerated Reader will get to take home the dino of their choosing.  If I do not have the Triceratops put together by Wednesday, I will be sending the pieces along with the directions home to someone who is hopefully more capable than me!

We also got to play with some 4D Augmented Reality dinosaurs this week.  They each got to choose their favorite dino picture and pretend they were holding it.  We did a cute writing assignment then telling why that dinosaur was their favorite.

We just so happened to be learning about space and the planets at this same time so we got to play with the planet Augmented Reality cards too.  Even I got to hold the whole universe in my hand!

We had such a super fun week with our Dinosaurs and Space unit!  Technology can make anything SO much more interesting!

~Ms. Anglin