Dinosaur Books

            I choose dinosaurs as the theme of my five picture books. I like the topic because it can be integrated into many different lessons for early elementary students. From these picture books I could teach an art lesson, science lesson, writing lesson and obviously a reading lesson. The five picture books I would base these lessons on are When Dinosaurs Came with Everything, If you Give a T-Rex a Bone, The Magic School Bus in the Time of Dinosaurs, Can I Bring my Pterodactyl to School Ms. Johnson?, and How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?.

            The science lesson would definitely start with The Magic School Bus in the Time of Dinosaurs. This book goes on an adventure to the past where they are looking for a dinosaur but keep ending up in the wrong era so they see other dinosaurs they weren’t planning on. The pages are full of side notes with facts about dinosaurs, bubbles of conversations talk about what the different dinosaurs they see and what the dinosaurs eat. This book would get the children excited about the science lesson and they would learn many facts about dinosaurs without me just writing them out on a blackboard. The illustrations are very detailed with plants and dinosaurs that existed. The book also shows time lines of the different eras since the earth has existed, the pictures label all the different dinosaurs that are shown, it introduces definitions such as prey and meat eaters. This book would be a very easy way to teach about the environment, the life cycle, dinosaurs and history.

            Another science lesson that would be more focused on dinosaurs could be planned from If you Give a T-Rex a Bone. This would be more specific than The Magic School Bus in the Time of Dinosaurs because it doesn’t introduce as many topics but it is more specific about the life cycle. This goes through different dinosaurs and what would happen in you interfered with their world, then goes to the next dinosaur. This book talks more about which dinosaurs are carnivores and which dinosaurs are herbivores. It talks about how they hunt and what they use as weapons whether it be their claws, teeth, horns or spikes. The book also shows the dinosaurs in the habitat they lived in such as in the jungle, in water or on the beach. I could talk with the students about different animals habitat and what their own habitat is. This book could be used for a specific dinosaur unit, maybe before a trip to the museum.

            A reading lesson could be created from How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight? Because it is a simpler book. The book has a different situation on every page about what kids do to avoid bedtime but in the end the dinosaur goes to bed easily. The words have a lot of repetition so it would be good for beginners because they could remember the words that are used. The pictures show what the page is talking about so the student could look at the pictures for clues as to what the word may be. This is also an easy book that they could take home to practice with their parents because it is the perfect bedtime story (i.e. the title).

            Can I Bring my Pterodactyl to School, Ms. Johnson? And When Dinosaurs Came With Everything are both stories that involve the dinosaurs as characters, but don’t tell any facts. I choose these to include in my lesson plan because I don’t always want to have factual books because children will get bored of dinosaurs, I want them to have fun books too. Can I Bring my Pterodactyl to School? Is about a boy who wins a pterodactyl as a prize and lists all the ways the pterodactyl could help him and the class at school, even though in the end he realizes that he won a woolly mammoth instead. When Dinosaurs Came With Everything is about a town that gives away dinosaurs when you go to the dentist, buy a sandwich or even go to the movies. Both of these books could start children on an art project because it would stimulate their imagination. I could ask them to draw what they would with their dinosaur if they got one with the dentist or won a prize and could bring it to school. This would challenge their art skills along with demonstrating what they learned from the previous science lessons, if they remember the different kinds of dinosaurs and what they looked like. These books would be the wrap up to the dinosaur unit because they would have to build on everything they have learned from the other subjects and books to complete this project.