identifiation

What's ENORMOUS, FEROCIOUS, and EXTINCT?  Why dinosaurs, of course.  It's these very qualities that make the topic so intriguing to young children.  Add to the mix that they lived in PREHISTORIC (vocab.) times when no real people could actually study them, much less observe them, and one has a field of study that promotes imagination.  The children had no problem trying to recreate the sounds of the "thundering lizards," or creating stories about their hunting and fighting.  By the end of the week they all knew a few of the long scientific dinosaur names and most had a favorite.  We have a wonderful collection of large plastic dinosaurs that allows for lots of hands on play and closer examination of the characteristics we studies in our books.