Adventures with Pete the Paleontologist

 A little afraid of dinos?  Never fear, because Pete the Paleontologist is here!  Pete popped up in our classroom early last week--but we quickly realized that he was missing all of his important Paleontologist tools!  We decided he needed to have his tools in order to teach us all about dinosaurs and fossils, so the kids read about tools a Paleontologist needs to have for a day on the job, then created their own tools to give to Pete!  Some of the tools pictured are a dinosaur research book, a flashlight, a shovel, a pick axe, a notebook and a pencil (to take detailed notes), glasses (to look at things carefully), goggles (to protect his eyes), a brush (to brush away dirt), a magnifying glass, and a tool belt to hold his tools.  Although we were surprised when Pete showed up in our class, we were completely SHOCKED and excited to find the next day that GIANT dinosaurs had moved into our classroom overnight!  WOAH!

We learned about carnivores and herbivores, and after reading Trouble at the Dinosaur Cafe, we created some meals for our carnivore and herbivore dino friends.  Stuck to Mr. Carnivore's face are the foods we drew for him to eat.  He has a delicious variety of meats:  meatballs, hot dogs, steak, ribs, chicken legs, hamburgers, and sausage.  Stuck to Mr. Herbivore are a variety of plant foods we thought he'd enjoy:  trees, oranges, apples, leaves, broccoli, grass, and...hot peppers!   We even brought in our favorite toy dinosaurs and sorted them into carnivores and herbivores--just by looking at their teeth, necks, and claws! We also learned that slower moving dinosaurs walked on all 4 legs, and the faster dinosaurs could speed after prey on just 2 hind legs!  Cool!

 We used Crayola air dry clay to create our very own fossils!  Most of us used shells to press into our clay.       This is a little "Fossil Exhibit"that shows off all the interesting fossils everyone made!

To top off all of our adventures, we really became little Paleontologists--and were able to dig for dinosaur bones and other fossils!    

Do you see the dinosaur bone?  

 As we pieced together parts of "dinosaur eggs", we learned just how hard a Paleontologist's job can be--especially when there are pieces of bone or egg shell that don't belong with the others!  So tricky!