Little paleontologists.

Dinosaur shirt. check.

Paleontologist hat. check.

Excavation tools. check. 

To kick off our paleontology lessons, I gifted Everett the book Dinosaur Dig, and I gave him a bucket full of paleontologist tools (plastic silverware, wooden skewer, metal spoon, plastic saw, plastic hammer, metal roller, infant bulb syringe, screwdriver, and an old toothbrush). I told him that he had better put on his dinosaur shirt and his paleontologist hat, because he was going to be a paleontologist!

Books we checked out from the library and read:

• National Geographic Kids Ultimate Dinopedia
• The Big Book of Dinosaurs
• How do Dinosaurs Say I Love You?
• The Berenstain Bears and the Missing Dinosaur Bone
• Dinosaurs Before Dark
• Dinosaur Dig
• The Lost Dinosaur Bone by Mercer Mayer

Resources:

• Dinosaur skeletons
• Clay

Activities:

• Excavating a dinosaur skeleton from clay
• Digging for dinosaur skeletons 
• Making our own dinosaur coloring book by printing out dinosaur pages from the American Museum of Natural History website. 
• Creating a life size T-Rex tooth art piece
• Field trip to the Natural History Museum

Excavating a dinosaur skeleton from clay:

A few days before this, I put hardening clay around a dinosaur skeleton, so that Everett could get it out as a paleontologist. I gave him one tool at a time from his bucket to try to excavate his dinosaur skeleton. It took a lot longer than I thought it would for him to get it out. Putting a lot of water on it and using the screw driver finally worked. 

Digging for dinosaur skeletons:

I'm not sure if this was a good idea or a bad idea for our school lesson, but it was fun, once I let go of my anxiety about the mess. First, Everett helped me create mud in our water table. Then, I buried our dinosaur skeletons in the mud, and Everett and Cambria had to find them. Once they found them, they had to use their paleontologist tools to clean them off.  Needless to say, mud got everywhere, and everyone needed a bath, even the dinosaurs.

After the bath, we finished our school lesson by playing with all the dinosaurs, and then creating a T-Rex tooth. I drew an outline of an actual size of a T-Rex tooth, and then Everett decided how he wanted to fill it to make an art piece. He chose markers and scissors, and colored and cut paper, and then glued it with a glue stick. Then, he colored more in his dinosaur book. We finished our lesson with a trip to the San Diego Natural History Museum (aka the Dinosaur Museum), one Everett's favorite places in the world, and probably the place that started his passion for dinosaurs.