My Dinosaur

Teacher notes

What this is for

A first research task for children who are still building writing stamina. Almost everything is drawing, ticking or single words. The one idea underneath it is that dinosaurs are known from bones people dug up — not from anyone having seen one.

Running it

• Best done with an adult nearby for the first few minutes — spinning the globe and tapping a marker is intuitive, but choosing takes encouragement.
• Section 3 uses the atlas’s own four diet words, so children match a word rather than translate one. Omnivore and piscivore are rarer — 7 of the 54 specimens — and worth a word of explanation if a child lands on one. Spinosaurus and Baryonyx are the fish-eaters.
• Section 4: “bigger than me” is best answered in Scale Lab, which puts a human figure beside the dinosaur. A few species walked on both two and four legs, hence the third box.
• Section 4 needs the fossil photograph in the specimen's picture carousel. Some children draw the whole skeleton; some draw one bone. Both are fine.
• Timing: 30–40 minutes, or split across two sessions with the drawing done first.

Good specimens for this age

• Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Stegosaurus — instantly recognisable, strong silhouettes to draw.
• Ankylosaurus — the tail club is a gift for drawing and for "what was it for?" talk.
• Microraptor — four wings, and we know it was glossy black. Good for wonder.
• Argentinosaurus — enormous. Works well in Scale Lab against the human figure.

Talking points while they work

• How do you think anyone knows what colour it was? (Mostly we don't — but for a few, we do.)
• If we only found one bone, could we tell how big the whole animal was?
• What would you call it if you had found it first?

Curriculum links