Paleontologist Lapbook with Fossil Study for Dinosaur Week!

Have some fun with dinosaurs! Updated in 2022!

Students learn about dinosaurs by making a paleontologist fieldwork journal. Dinosaurs can be researched independently, with partners, in small group, or whole class. There is a Digging Up Dinosaurs Layer Book for students to read and make diagrams for 5 dinosaur types. Students can use this book or other research to record main characteristics of each dinosaur and make a sketch for their fieldwork journals. After a week of researching, you can simply bind the journals together with a paper bag cover and twine.

Your students can learn what a paleontologist does by completing the fun lap book. There is information on where fossils are found, tools a paleontologist uses, and types of dinosaurs. Students learn to think like a paleontologist by completing writing activities that explain how conclusions are made. They also complete an opinion writing to persuade someone to become a paleontologist. The lap book can be decorated with each student's head and a doctor name tag. My students loved seeing their name with Dr. ___.

There's more persuasive writing with a story connection to Can I Bring My Pterodactyl to School, Ms. Johnson? by Lois G. Grambling.

My students loved completing an imaginative name play with ___asauras and describing themselves as a dinosaur.

We studied bones and did an x-ray art project with My Bones poetry. Easy to prep with Q-tips.

Math Connections include:

-Math Measurement with inches and feet, elapsed time, and problem solving. Students can use more than one way to show how they solved dinosaur/paleontologist themed math problems.

-Measurement recording sheet and cards to measure fossils in inches and centimeters. These can be used in small groups or with partners.

Added in 2022:

• Fossil poster, What are Fossils? worksheet
• Where do we find fossils worksheet and a sheet to illustrate and record main idea from reading. There's a sample of a quick fossil painting that makes a great looking bulletin board.
• Task cards for review or assessment
• Diorama pieces for writing What Happened to the Dinosaurs?
• Why are dinosaurs extinct? informational read
• Types of fossils display sheet and informational reading worksheet
• Cookie Dig worksheet for students to use toothpicks and a chocolate chip cookie to dig out the chips
• Dice activity to draw a dinosaur with each roll
• Odd and Even fossil facts sort - great for small groups
• Group Table Signs
• Vocabulary to post in pocket chart
• Grid reading worksheet
• Fossil painting sheet (white crayon resist)
• Shape-o-saurus worksheet with shapes to color and create a dinosaur with circle, triangle, square, hexagon, pentagon, rhombus, and trapezoid
• Dinosaur word search
• Lesson plan and samples

We had a great dinosaur week!