J for Jurassic Period

See what we did for other letters in the Alphabet in Simple Science.

J for Jurassic

Science Notebook Page (Click the picture to print).

Background

Ok, so I realize Jurassic Period is a little bit of a stretch from the normal science topics I like to do.  However, J was a hard one!  I couldn't very well do Joules!  Anyway, I chose Jurassic Period for the letter J, so we talked about how it was a time when many dinosaurs lived on Earth, and then we focused on dinosaurs.

We read some dinosaur books and I downloaded a couple of dinosaur Little Reader Lessons (free for anyone who has Little Reader)

He also watched The Magic School Bus Busosaurus

Dino Footprints

Materials:

Toys Dinosaurs (we used a Dinos Toob)

Play Dough

Procedure:

I rolled out some play dough and lined up one of each dinosaur.  Then I had Xander press them into the play dough to see what kind of footprints they made.  He made some observations and we talked about what he saw.  He liked it so much that he did it a few times.

The Conversation:

We talked about the impressions made and their sizes compared to each other.  We also talked about how some dinosaurs left impressions with their tails, while others did not.  We compared the dinosaurs that stood on two feet compared to four.  I asked him what he noticed and then asked leading questions to get him to notice some things he did not notice on his own.

Dino Sensory Bin

To go with the dinosaur theme, we did a dino sensory bin.  I used cloud dough (8 cups flour and 1 cup baby oil).  I threw in the dinos from his toob and dino fossil ice cube tray.  I gave him a spoon and he had a ball!  We made fossils out of the "sand"and he had the dinosaurs climb around.  (For more sensory bin activities, check out the Sensory Play page).

Making fossils.

Not sure how some could have gotten on his nose...

Check out my Alphabet in Simple Science Pinterest Board!