My son has been a dinosaur fanatic ever since he was 3 years old. This passion has spilled over into everyday life for us. What started out as a little boys interest has led to many museum visits, documentaries, puzzles, science experiments, internet searches, geography, mapping skills, and paleontology summer camps. As a family, we have all learned more about the Permian, Jurassic, Triassic, Cretaceous, and Pliocene time periods than we ever dreamed we would! Dinosaur means “Terrible Lizard” which is misleading because dinosaurs were not lizards at all. They are a separate group of reptiles. Additionally, many prehistoric animals, including pterosaurs, plesiosauria and dimetrodon are not classified as dinosaurs….yep, more than I ever thought I would know.
Interest Led Learning
My husband and I have encouraged Gabriel to delve as deeply into any subject as he wants. We believe that whatever Gabriel finds of interest, he should find out as much about that subject as possible. With that, Gabriel decided to create his own “Dinosaur Field Guide” though it contains creatures that are not dinosaurs and from different time periods. It would probably be better named “The Prehistoric Field Guide”. He asked me if I would help him with this project by looking up videos, facts and pictures about the creatures he had chosen. Of course I said yes! Gabriel always chooses whatever creature he wants to research and through research he gets ideas for his next subject. For example, by looking up Dimetradon, he learned about Synapsids and so discovered many other genus such as Moschops. This also led him to discover the Scientific Classification.
When looking up the prehistoric creatures, Gabriel discovers where they are found in the world and what time periods they lived in. I start him off by giving him the Latitiude and Longitude of the location where the fossils can be found. Once he finds the location, we talk about that country. Thus a discussion of what their world looked like verses the world we live in today. In the case of Tyrannosaurus Rex, he learned that what is now the western part of the United States was once Laramidia, an island continent. He also learned that the Western Interior Seaway split the continent of North America in two. One side being Laramidia and the other called Appalachia.
We always use our world map to mark where in the world a dinosaur fossil is found. We do this so that Gabriel will know where he wants to go on his fossil digs when he is a paleontologist. He currently wants to visit North Africa, Montana, Utah, Mongolia, Madagascar, and Patagonia. As he was researching the Carnotaurus of Patagonia in South America, he wanted to know why it was called Patagonia. This led into the discovery of Patagonia by Ferdinand Magellan.
Before the Dinosaur Field Guide project, Gabriel loathed writing. I would still have him do some copy work but he really didn’t enjoy it. The Dinosaur Field Guide project has replaced his original copy work. I find this very important because now he is writing about subjects and ideas that matter to him. His reading and writing has greatly improved since beginning this project. He has even asked me about cursive writing in the past week. He wants to sign his name the way a real Paleontologist would and I think it is awesome!
Interest Led Learning
We incorporate art into the Dinosaur Field Guide by having Papa or myself draw up the creature that Gabriel has researched. Then Gabriel colors the picture with markers, paints, or crayons based on evidence he has found to support any color or feathers that may have existed. Many times we will also make models out of clay or legos. This is how Gabriel discovered the difference between bipedal and quadrupedal. While dinosaurs were ancestrally bipedal, he learned, that many groups included quadrupedal species, and some were able to shift between the two. By the way, humans are bipedal.
Gabriels Dinosaur Field Guide currently contains 16 different species of prehistoric creatures. Based on our experience of interest led learning, I highly recommend it. Not every child or family is interested in dinosaurs, nor should they be. Every child is different. Some children may be interested in art, biology, writing, or sharks. If you can find that which sparks your childs imagination, creativity and desires then you have hit the educational jack pot!
This is a really great way to learn how to write. I love his writing too. He is very very good. I also love his art work. Very nice!
Thanks so much for sharing the dinosaur field guide on the #homeschoollinkup!
His writing has really improved since starting the field guide 🙂 Thank you for stopping by and for the #homeschoollinkup
I think this is great! It is important to let kids really dive into the subjects that interest them, and it looks like you are doing just that. My 5 year old has a big interest in dinosaurs too! Thanks for sharing! #shinebloghop
Thank you!
Wow! Those are amazing!
I used to be a huuuuuuuge dinosaur fanatic as a child as well! haha
Thank you! I find that I have become a huge dino fan 🙂
This is such a great way to learn and explore for them. Dinosaurs are a huge hit here too now. Lovely post. Thanks for linking up to Share With Me. #sharewithme
Thank you for stopping by Jenny! I’m glad you enjoyed my post. I enjoyed the link up 🙂
Wow such amazing way to inspire kids. I wonder if I can do this to my son who loves traffic signs ever since I can remember. I would try to look into it as I want him to explore the things that he loves deeper too =) #sharewithme
Of course you can! Learning the different shapes of the signs are your math/geometry, where they are found or made can be geography, making your own signs can be art, their names and meanings are vocabulary, the history of traffic signs…there are so many ways to inspire your child into delving as deeply into a topic as they want. I hope that helps get you started!
Thank you for stopping by 🙂