Dinosaur Writing

Dinosaur Writing can be a helpful supplement to your unit.

Dinosaur writing includes writing from picture prompts, reading a poem, fossil procedure writing, and quick facts about tracks! It's all here!

The first activity is: "Write Like a Scientist: Guess Who Hangs Out at the Museum?" Kids infer and write a response to a picture prompt. This picture of a dinosaur fossil photo will help motivate your kids to read and write informational text. Other activities include looking for evidence in the text (in short passages), poetry, a fossil recipe (ever popular) and procedure writing to go with it. Vocabulary cards and "tracks" to create your own vocabulary for reading and writing are included. And there's more....

I wrote a poem to go with the photo which I took while visiting the Smithsonian Institute. The photo inspired me to write, "Hey, T-Rex!" This works well as a choral read, a buddy/paired reading, or as a fun independent reading. My kids get revved up reading this poem!

Follow up with dinosaur tracks! Use them to make word cards, questions, or fast facts. Supplement your dinosaur study or other nonfiction work on prehistoric life with these activities.

This resource is directly aligned with the Common Core State Standards (K-5) for Informational Writing: procedure and writing to inform--specifically for grades 2 and 3.

Writing from a photo is a strategic way to introduce your kids to responding to questions using evidence from a text, or any other form of media.

CONTENTS
Ready to Print pages
• T-Rex photo and response page
• Informational paragraph page
• Infer from a picture and complete a paragraph, and answer sheet
• Apatosaurus photo and written response using
evidence from the photo and text
• Apatosaurus answer key page
• T-Rex poem
• Vocabulary cards and blank ones
• Flour & salt dough fossil activity (a classic, old-time favorite)
• Graphic organizer for writing a procedure: Make Your Own Dinosaur Fossil
• How Big Were Dinosaur Eggs? Color an egg, and/or to use for facts or as a
graphic organizer
• Track Facts
• Several track patterns (big and small) to make dinosaur track fact cards!
• Prompt: My Favorite Dinosaur
• Track cards with common dinosaur names and extra blanks
• Dino-mite Vocabulary: A word list with vocabulary questions
• Two pages of stationery for report or narrative writing

*This resource will combine reading, writing and hands-on activities to help them discover the story behind the picture. It's a fun way to integrate science and language arts.

(I usually set up a museum table of books and models, and later on--they help create a ginormous diorama---or "dino-rama".)

A Supplement to Your Unit: This product is intended to be a helpful supplement to your dinosaur studies. This is not a unit, but the activities could easily cover 3-4 days of instruction.

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I hope your kids have a dino-mite time with this lesson pack!
Thanks,
Karen
My Growing Smart Readers Blog