Free Fallin' Into First!: If I Was A Dinosaur

Saturday, April 21, 2012

If I Was A Dinosaur

Finally back to bloggy world and I thought I'd share some projects with you that my students recently completed. Towards the end of my Dinosaurs unit, I always have my students create a project titled "If I was a Dinosaur." Before I assign the project, I trace each student's body on a large piece of butcher paper (they choose the color). I make sure they're laying with they're arms and legs slightly apart and trace in marker. Then, I roll up the butcher paper they've been traced on and send home a project letter. At home, students can cut out their bodies and use any extra paper to help create what they think they might look like as a dinosaur. Pretty cute, huh?!?! This is a creative project, so some students' projects are completely fictional, while others appear to be more true to form/nonfiction. Typically, I allow at least 2 weeks for students to complete this project.

In school, we write a report with the same title: "If I was a Dinosaur." In the report, we consider what we might eat. Herbivore, carnivore, or hey it's 2012...maybe an omnivore! Based on what we eat, we also consider who we might be friends with and who our enemies might be. Then, we try to imagine what we might have spent our days doing. This is a great way to get in some creative, imaginative, personal narrative writing that requires some background knowledge and general reasoning. The pics below are projects created by students I've had in the last 2 years. I'd love to put up pics of the ones hanging now, but my memory card is full! Oh NO!!! I gotta clear some of those pics off or buy a new one, oy!