Dinosaurs

Books

🌿Dinosaur Lady: The Daring Discoveries of Mary Anning, the First Paleontologist by Linda Skeers
I think this illustrated biography does a better job than some of highlighting important details about Mary Anning’s story. Particularly that the word dinosaur hadn’t been invented when she discovered the ichthyosaur skeleton, that she conducted valuable early research on fossils, and that she was excluded from the academic lectures and teaching positions her peers enjoyed in the male-only Geological Society of London. At the end of this book you can find additional fossil trivia and a timeline of Anning’s life.

🌿 When Sue Found Sue by Toni Buzzeo
This illustrated nonfiction book tells the story of adventurous & curious Sue Hendrickson who grew up to discover a nearly-complete T-Rex skeleton in the hills of South Dakota.  This book tells her story from the time she was a child visiting the Field Museum of Chicago to the day her famous discovery–Sue the Tyrannosaurus Rex–came to live at the same museum.

🌿Here We Go Digging for Dinosaur Bones by
This illustrated book is a song set to the tune of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” It’s a very cute book about the process paleontologists use to uncover and interpret dinosaur bones.

🌻Nerdy Babies: Dinosaurs by Emmy Kastner
This is an illustrated nonfiction board book with simple explanations suitable for toddlers, but the scientific descriptions are actually really good. Alongside the dinosaurs are illustrations of interested babies in pajamas offering commentary and questions.

🌻Rosa Loves Dinosaurs by Jessica Spanyol
This illustrated board book celebrates a child’s love of dinosaurs, engaging toy dinosaurs in play alone, with friends, and entwined with daily routines! It features short sentences and, interestingly, avoids using gendered pronouns entirely. Spanyol’s “Rosa” series focuses on gender-inclusive portrayals of activities and interests that girls are often excluded (or more subtly redirected away) from in childhood.

🌻Dinosaurs by Jeffrey Burton
This touch-and-feel board book is predominantly “cute.” It has a comfortable rhyming scheme, interactive pages, and the dinosaur names are all given in a fold-out illustration at the end of the book. Be advised that there is a pop-out page with delicate pieces that may require supervision and/or reinforcement.

🌻ABC Dinosaurs by American Museum of Natural History
If you love the challenge of pronouncing dinosaur names, this might be the book for you. I love dinosaur names and I struggle with a lot of the choices they made in this book. I don’t care much for ABC books as a concept, but this one was definitely a flop. No additional information is provided beyond the names, either. That being said, you do get 26 decent dinosaur illustrations in one sturdy board book (and yes, the therapods are feathered and winged).

Dinosaurs by Emily Bone
One of the things I love about this book is the feathered illustrations of therapod dinosaurs like t-rex and raptors–there are even two such dinosaurs on the cover! Any children’s book reflecting modern scientific understandings of dinosaurs automatically gets my respect, but I also loved the simplistic text. The book is not quite linear, so there are facts and dinosaurs that can be skipped over if you wish, though in this book these are not denoted in smaller text. I do appreciate that we get the names of some other animals depicted, including the early mammal being preyed upon by the winged velociraptor.

Little People, Big Ideas: Mary Anning by Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara
This illustrated biography shares a lot of good information about early paleontologist Mary Anning’s life through around 17 short paragraphs. There is additional information provided on a page spread after the story.

Dragon Bones by Sarah Glenn Marsh
This illustrated biography of paleontologist Mary Anning highlights the interest in beachside treasures that shaped her childhood, provided income for her family, and lead to the discovery of her first fossil skeleton–an ichthyosaur. The book also mentions the plesiosaur skeleton she uncovered and sold and how she was uncredited as the source of the find. After the story is an additional detailed biographical paragraph and a summary of the dinosaur fossils she discovered.

The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley
In 1853, Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins built 33 life-sized dinosaur sculptures for the Crystal Palace in a London Park, commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Although we know enough about dinosaurs now to recognize the many inaccuracies of these sculptures, the book neatly describes the breaking scientific insights that informed Waterhouse’s depictions at that time and the impact the sculptures had on education and public awareness about dinosaurs. Notably, the book goes on to talk about Waterhouse’s woes working in America where his new sculptures were decommissioned, destroyed and buried in Central Park. This book does an excellent job of portraying the relationship between scientific discovery and artistic portrayal.
Note: 2023 research of old documents revealed the destruction to be ordered by Central Park Treasurer and VP Henry Hilton without indication of Tweed’s involvement. The book is still excellent, and the story can be modified on reading, but as it’s already a reasonably long book, it’s often suited my purposes to simply end the story with the success of the Crystal Palace exhibition.

Exploring Dinosaurs by Jill McDonald
This illustrated nonfiction book is much wordier than McDonald’s board books from the same collection, but the information is presented in a nonlinear way that allows to skip text boxes or read extra captions.

Fossil by Fossil by Sara Levine
This illustrated nonfiction book explains similarities between human skeletons and dinosaur skeletons and explores differences between our skeletons and those of dinosaurs like stegosaurus, triceratops, ankylosaur, and more.  The book closes with the last living dinosaurs–birds!

Gigantosaurus by Jonny Duddle
A children’s book that inspired a television show, Gigantosaurus is a prehistoric retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. It’s a nicely rhythmic story with a repeating scheme and good rhyming. There is a moment where you’re left wondering if the young lying dinosaur has actually been eaten before it’s revealed that he’s okay.

Creative Art Opportunities

🦖Collage with bones (cut Qtips in half)
🦖Collage with feathers (whole or cut up)
🦖Footprints with sponge stamps
🦖Painting with feathers
🦖Fossil prints with shells and paint
🦖Fossil prints with dinosaurs and paint

Hands On Experiences

⛅️Put together dinosaur puzzles (floor puzzle or wooden puzzle)
⛅️Make dinosaur footprints in playdough
⛅️Explore a giant egg (mine is painted paper mache from a craft store)
⛅️Explore wooden music egg shakers\
⛅️Dye hard-boiled eggs (or use nontoxic markers)
⛅️Play with dinosaur figurines (Try high quality models: ankylosaurus, triceratops, parasaurolophus, stegosaurus, brachiosaurus, plesiosaurus, these pterosaurs, and this feathered utahraptor— the company has a wide line of high-quality dinosaur figurines, but I try to avoid the Jurassic Park versions when I can).
⛅️Explore a large ostrich feather
⛅️Explore in gravel, sand, or rice in a sensory table to search for “fossils”
⛅️Press dinosaurs into playdough to make impressions in profile
⛅️Dig in gravel, sand, or rice for “fossils”
🌿Build a dinosaur nest out of sticks or branches or stones
🌿Dig in the earth for fossils
🌿Take a dinosaur figurine for a walk
❄️Play with dinosaurs in the snow
❄️Build a dinosaur “nest” out of a mound of snow– fill it with snow eggs!

Songs to Learn and Sing

“Dinosaurs (Fossils)” – Jessie Farrel and the Gumboot Kids (a cute and simple folksy song about fossils).

Fossils tell a story of animals and plants
Fossils are imprints kept on rocks and sand
No if we didn’t have fossils then we wouldn’t really have a clue
No if we didn’t have fossils then we wouldn’t really have a clue

We wouldn’t know about dinosaurs
We wouldn’t know about di-no-saurs
We wouldn’t know about dinosaurs
We wouldn’t know about di-no-saurs
We learn from the past so we know what to do today
Yeah, we learn from the past so we know what to do today
[everything repeats]

“We Are the Dinosaurs“ – Laurie Berkner (a perennial classroom favorite, this wonderful action song covers dinosaurs in some basic animal behaviors without anthropomorphizing too much).

We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching
We are the dinosaurs–Whaddaya think of that?
We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching
We are the dinosaurs, we make the earth flat, we make the earth flat

We stop and eat our food when we’re in the mood
We stop and eat our food on the ground
We stop and eat our food when we’re in the mood
We stop and eat our food and then we march around…

‘Cause we are the dinosaurs, marching, marching
We are the dinosaurs–Whaddaya think of that?
We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching
We are the dinosaurs, we make the earth flat, we make the earth flat

We stop and take a rest, over in our nest
We stop and take a rest at the end of the day
We stop and take a reast, over in our nest
We stop and take a rest and then you’ll hear us say….

That we are the dinosaurs, marching, marching
We are the dinosaurs–Whaddaya think of that?
We are the dinosaurs, marching, marching
We are the dinosaurs, we make the earth flat, we make the earth flat
And then we Rooooooooooaarr…. ‘Cause we are the dinosaurrrrrrrrrrrrs

“Dinosaur Daydreams” – Jurassic Joe (I had to look up a lot of names referenced in this song to ensure I spelled them correctly while listening to the lyrics, but I love dinosaurs and it was an enjoyable challenge. We’re not going to nitpick about the taxonomy, either, because taxon are always changing as we learn more.)

So many things that I could do, inside and outdoors
But I find myself just daydreaming about those dinosaurs…

I saw a mimni on a Monday, troodon on a Tuesday, wakinosaur on Wednesday–oh what a sight
Therapods on Thursday, fabrosaurs on Friday, spinosaurs on Saturday and Sunday night
In my dinosaur daydreams, wondering how it might have been 200 million years ago
In my dinosaur daydreams, wondering how it might have been, wondering if we ever will know

So on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday daydreaming all day long
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday sing another dinosaur song
In my dinosaur daydreams, wondering how it might have been 200 million years ago
In my dinosaur daydreams, wondering how it might have been, wondering if we ever will know
[repetitions with instrumental break]

NIYN – Dinosaurs on Spotify
All playlists are works in progress and are actively curated when I have a unit in play or preparation, so new songs may appear and old songs may be removed if they don’t suit my designs.