Perhaps no other animal–living or dead–has captured our imaginations like the dinosaur. If your child loves dinosaurs, it provides a great opportunity to introduce them to Paleontology — the study of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago. Encourage your child’s scientific thinking skills by exploring life science and natural history.
eMediaVA Learning Resources
In this eMediaVA playlist, you’ll find:
Dinosaur Trading Cards – A collection of 49 fact cards to learn about dinosaurs—from Adocus to Zhejiangopterus!
NASA eClips: Finding Dinosaurs – A video from NASA that shows how NASA assists paleontologists in finding dinosaur fossils.
GPS: Dinosaurs – A DragonflyTV segment that follows two girls as they learn about paleontology.
Plus, learn about fossils, explore why dinosaurs got so huge, learn how the T-Rex lost its arms, and more! View the whole playlist.
Crafts
Make Dinosaur Feet – Have you ever wanted to stomp around like Buddy or tiptoe like Tiny? Compare the differences between Tyrannosaurus rex and Pteranodons while making your own prehistoric model feet out of tissue boxes!
Make Dinosaur Footprints and Trackways – You can learn a lot just by looking at a dinosaur’s fossilized footprint! Scientists have a special name for a group of animal footprints: a trackway. Transform your child’s human footsteps into Tyrannosaurus rex trackways by painting and imprinting cardboard dinosaur feet.
Make a Stegosaurus Puppet – Creating a Stegosaurus puppet can help your child understand how the dinosaur’s plates and spikes helped it survive.
Games
Fossil Finder – Your child can dig for fossils in this game while learning about deep Earth creatures and fossilized animals.
Opening Ceremony – Your child will learn to sort dinosaurs based on their attributes in this game, such as height, length, and the number of feet.
Printables
Dinosaur Bones – Help your child put the dinosaur back together.
Dinosaur and Pterosaur Hand Shadows – Learn how to create four different Dinosaur Train hand shadows with your child.