For my
Elevate an Activity assignment, I chose to use a dinosaur lesson. My students have been very interested in
learning about dinosaurs recently, so I took their current interest to build a
lesson on collaboration. To complete
this lesson, students chose a dinosaur to learn more about. They learned about this dinosaur through
books, class discussion, and using the internet with adult help. Planning this activity took quite a bit of
time because my students are preschool age and I wanted to be sure they would
be successful. I started by introducing
several different dinosaurs to the students.
Once they were aware of a variety of dinosaurs, I had them vote on which
dinosaur they wanted to learn more about.
They chose the Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The students then worked together (with the teacher) to decide what they
wanted to learn about T-Rex. They
decided that they would like to learn about where he lived, what he ate, and
how big he was. Working whole class, we
looked online to find information answering their questions. My students are not able to write, but some
of them drew pictures and some dictated to me and I wrote what they wanted to
be included. After our research was
complete, I pulled out a variety of art supplies. The students broke up into groups of two or
three and each group decided what part of the diorama they wanted to make. One group made a T-Rex out of playdough, one
group made the habitat by painting paper and making plants with pipe cleaners
and puff balls, and one group made other dinosaurs as food out of
playdough. After the diorama was
complete, the students took turns playing with the dinosaurs in their habitat.
