Inventive Dinosaurs
Using a variety of Latin and Greek roots, students
invented their own dinosaurs and wrote creative stories about them. Some of
the stories describe new "discoveries" by world-famous paleontologists,
while others describe the life and adventures of some rather unusual creatures.
After choosing a name for their dinosaurs, the students drew pictures that represented
special features like two heads, an armored body, or a tooth on top of its heavy
head.
Students were introduced to a variety of words
that were categorized as prefixes, suffixes, and animal parts. Some examples
included "acro" (at the top), "bronto" (thunder), "mimus"
(imitator), "saurus" (lizard), and "cerato" (horn). An example
of an invented dinosaur might be diplocephalosaurus, meaning double-headed lizard.
Another example might be gravipanoplomimus, meaning heavy armored imitator.
What follows are examples of our students' creative
thinking.
Back
to dinosaur unit plan
Updated
March, 2004