Many children have problems learning the letters of the alphabet. Since letter recognition depends on understanding a sequence of features, the best way to teach children the sequence of features in recognizing a letter is by guided practice.

Although we do use worksheets in our classroom, our primary mode of instruction is through the manipulation of concrete materials. These can resemble anything from flashcards to sandpaper letters, shaving cream to salt trays.

The most important thing is that there is a physical response to an abstract one. For this activity, we practiced matching upper and lower case letters. On account of this being triceratops week, we used this dinosaur manipulative to complete the activity. To do so, we placed paper squares onto a flat surface (the table). Students were then handed cards with pictures of dinosaurs on them. Each card had a capital or a lowercase letter. Following this, students matched each pair of letters. Lastly, they placed them into each square.

Paleontology is the branch of biology that studies the forms of life that existed in former geologic periods, primarily by studying fossils. The only direct way we have of learning about dinosaurs is by studying fossils.

Fossils are the remains of ancient animals and plants, the traces or impressions of living things from past geologic ages, or the traces of their activities. Fossils have been found on every continent on Earth. The word fossil comes from the Latin word fossilis, which means, “dug up”.

Most fossils are excavated from sedimentary rock layers (Sedimentary rock is rock that has formed from sediment, like sand, mud, and small pieces of rock). Over long periods of time, these small pieces of debris are compressed (squeezed) and are buried under more and more layers of sediment that piles up on top of it. Eventually, they are compressed into sedimentary rock. The fossil of a bone doesn’t have any bone in it!  A fossilized object has the same shape as the original object, but is chemically more like a rock.

For this activity, we used salt dough to create our very own fossils. Because we discussed stegosauruses this week, our fossils consisted of this special dinosaur. A few students also selected the spinosaurus for their fossil. To prep, we talked about what a fossil is. We then practiced placing a variety of dinosaurs into the salt dough to see what kinds of indentations they would leave. Finally, we chose the one we wanted to take home, and then allowed them to harden in the toaster oven!

Sixty-five million years ago, a meteor smashed into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, throwing up billowing clouds of ash and smoke that quickly spread, over the next few days and weeks, across the world’s atmosphere.

Blotted out, the sun could no longer nourish the earth’s teeming ferns, forests and flowers, and as these plants died, so did the animals that fed on them–first the herbivorous dinosaurs, and then the carnivorous dinosaurs whose populations these plant-eaters sustained.

That, in a nutshell, is the story of the K/T Extinction Event. But some experts think this story is incomplete: it has a suitably thrilling climax, to be sure, but not enough attention has been paid to the events leading up to it.

Specifically, evidence exists that the five million years leading up to the K/T Extinction witnessed a huge surge in volcanic activity–and that lung-choking, sun-blocking volcanic ash, every bit as much as meteor debris, may have weakened dinosaurs to such an extent that they were easy pickings for the Yucatan disaster. To recreate this exciting theory, we made our own volcanoes out of clay, baking soda, and vinegar. Students enjoyed manipulating their dinosaurs onto these volcanoes, watching in glee as they exploded!