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Introduction Grade K Lessons Grade 1 Lessons Grade 2 Lessons Grade 3 Lessons Bibliography
Table of Contents
Lesson Overview
Teacher Background Information
Lesson Focus
Objective Grid
Lesson 1: Long Ago
Lesson 2: Extinction
Lesson 3: Fossils
Lesson 4: Types of Dinosaurs
Lesson 5: Meat and Plant Eaters
Lesson 6: The Dinosaur's Life Cycle
Lesson 7: Nature and Change
-The Continents Divide
-Making a Pictograph
-Dinosaur Mathematics
-Appendix D - Ty Rex's Tooth
-Appendix E - A Blue Whale
References
Spanish Language Translations

Dinosaurs - Lesson 7: Nature and Change
ACTIVITY: Making a Pictograph

Objective
Students compare lengths to explore ratios and proportion.

Materials

  • Sets of cutouts for each child to see the relative sizes of a human, a two-story house, and a dinosaur
  • Paper clips to make chains
Procedures

If the following heights are used as averages: six feet for a human, 18 feet for a two-story house, and 30 feet for the iguanodon, stegosaurus, or triceratops, then the ratios will be 1:3 for a human to a house, and 3:5 as the ratio of a house to an iguanodon.

If the students select a 40-foot tyrannosaurus instead of an iguanodon, the ratio is 1:3:7, of a human to a house, and a house to a tyrannosaurus.

For the 140-foot dinosaur found in New Mexico, seismosaurus (earthshaker), the ratio is 1:3: 23, still using the average for a human and a two-story house.

These chains, below, are in the ratio of 1:3:5:7:23

1. Using these proportions, the students make a pictograph on a chart.
2. The students measure pieces of string to the size of a person, a house, and a dinosaur they select. Then they draw a scene with a house, a dinosaur, and a person to show the three in ratio and perspective.

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