Our Dino Diaries

    On the last day of our time with the students we had a little photoshoot where the students were able to show off some of their work as well as take some goofy pictures with us! 

These are our dried trace fossils that we had made previously!

Some of us had to do just a little bit more reading about all of the different dinosaur facts before the time was done….        
                                                                                      

 And finally came the group photos…

       We are so thankful for the experience that we had.  It was fantastic to work with the students and they taught us so much.  We hope that they enjoyed thier studies and have learnt lots about dinosaurs, fossils, herbivores and carnivores, endangered animals and paleontologists!  We sure had a blast teaching all of it!

Last week the students made endangered animal books.  In the dinosaur unit the students also have to learn about what it means by an animal being endangered.  The students were put into partners and each group picked an animal to make a book about.  The students researched information about their animals such as what they look like, what they eat, where they live and why they are endangered.  The last page of the book is where the students wrote about what can be done to help these animals.  All the students did a great job and worked well together to develop their books. 

                Noah and Jesse                          Kovi and Kadence

           Kylena and Kaidin                        Sean and Marshall

         Chantel and Jorlen                     Hayden and Mackenzie

    Karrah, Hazek and Teryn                    Gary and Ryland

        Emily and Kahdijah

Over the past week we have practiced a readers theatre play.  We made plastercine figures for our characters and worked on our lines.  To view our presentation please click on the link or picture below!  Ooga ooga…we hope you enjoy it…ooga ooga!

Little Grunt and the Big Egg by Tomie de Paolo
Readers Theatre Presentation

Today we went on a fieldtrip.  It was so much fun and we learnt so much!  We went to the museum.

We were so lucky to have great guides who shows up so many different things and then later took us to a classroom where there were lots of interesting fossils!

Then later we moved down into the paleo pit and discovery room where we had some time to work with our hands during a number of different dinosaur activities! Overall it was a great day for everyone!

On Friday we had the chance to have a geologist come into our classroom and talk to us about fossils.  He brought with him a wide variety of fossils from petrified wood to dinosaur droppings called copperlites.  It was great to look at and touch all of the different fossils and understand how interesting fossils are.  We are very thankful to have this opportunity!

 On Friday we went digging for dinosaurs.  The students were split into teams of three and worked together to uncover the hidden dinosaurs.  Each group had their own pit to dig in and find all the dinosaurs.  When the students were done finding all the dinosaurs they buried them again for the next group to find.  

   The students were given tools to help dig out the dinosaurs carefully.                

All the group members helped each other find all the dinosaurs     

We hope you all had fun!  We sure had fun getting it ready for all of you!

On Wednesday the class went on a scavenger hunt to collect dinosaur bones.

      We searched through the whole school to find all the pieces so we could make our own dinosaur skeleton.  We used our maps to find the different sites to collect the bones. When we found the pieces we put them together and discovered we had a skeleton of a T-Rex and a stegosaurus. 

In partners the students discussed the similarities and differences they could see between the two dinosaurs.

We created our very own flying dinosaurs and learnt all about pterodactyls.  First we got the body and then we picked materials to design our flying reptile.  Everyone made thier own wings and created something unique!

Everyone’s creation was very different and we had fun watching thier wings flap just like the real one’s would have done.

Today in class we learned about and made trace fossils.  All the students made their own footprint that will dry in a few days. 

This is a picture of all the students working hard while they were waiting for their turn to make their fossils.  The students are printing in their dino diaries.

The students got their play dough and pushed it down into a container to get it ready to make their footprint.  The play dough was made with used coffee grounds so it looks like dirt.   

When they were done flattening the play dough they came to the back of the room where we wiped the bottom of their foot with oil to keep it from sticking.

When the foot was ready the students pushed their foot into the play dough to make their footprint.

When they were done pushing their foot into the play dough they washed their feet and took a look at their creation. 

This is one of the footprints that was made today. 

This picture is of all the footprints drying.  The footprints will be taken out of the containers and put on display in the room.  We will post the pictures of the final prints when they are all dry. 

Coffee Ground “Fossils” Recipe

1 cup used coffee grounds
½ cup cold coffee
1 cup flour
½ cup salt
Wax paper
mixing bowl

Mix all ingredients together and knead until the texture is that of play dough. Place in an airtight bag or else it will dry and be unusable.