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History on Dinosaurs for Kids
- Gabrielle Fischer Posted On May 11, 2017 | STEM
Did you know that the first dinosaur was born about 230 million years ago? That was a long, long time ago.
How old are you? Think of that number, and take it and stretch it out all the way to the Moon… about a thousand times. That’s how long ago the very first dinosaur was alive.
When dinosaurs were born, the Earth was a very different place. Do you know about the continents? When dinos were around, there was only 1 continent. All of the different places on Earth were part of one big land. So if a Dinosaur wanted to, he could walk from where you live now all the way to Australia… if he had a lot of energy!
Plus, the weather was a lot different. When dinos were first born, Earth was hot and dry… even in places like Antarctica that are now covered in snow. Days were shorter too because the Earth actually spun around the Sun a little bit faster.
You probably think of dinosaurs as giants, but the first dinos were pretty small. Some of the earliest ones we know about were called Herrerasaurus and Eoraptor.
The Erorapter was about 3 feet tall and weighed around 20 pounds. It was really fast and would hunt other animals and eat plants.
The Herrerasaurus was bigger. He could grow to be about 20 feet long and weighed over 700 pounds. The Herrerasaurus was a hunter… so watch out if you ever see one!
As time went on, more and more Dinosaurs were born. Do you know about the theory of evolution? It means that animals, like dinosaurs, will keep changing and turning into new types of dinosaurs as time goes by.
The dinosaurs evolved into two different basic types: the Saurischians, like the Dilophosaurus.
The other types were the Ornithischians, which were the dinosaurs that ate plants, like the Stegosaurus.
Inside those two groups, over 800 types of dinosaurs evolved… that we know about so far. Scientists discover new types of dinosaurs all the time, and sometimes they go back and figure out something new about dinosaurs they already found. So they might change what a dinosaur is called or whether it’s part of another group.
By the way, did you know that scientists who study fossils like dinosaurs are called Paleontologists? Some of the most famous paleontologists were Jack Horner, Mary Anning, and Edwin H. Colbert. And the very first person to find a dinosaur fossil was Reverend Robert Plot, in England. The year was 1640. That was a long time ago!
As time went on, dinosaurs evolved to be pretty amazing!
The Apatosaurus was a type of dinosaur that grew over 75 feet long, weighed about 22 tons, was 15 feet high, and could actually make a sonic boom with his tail. Have you ever heard a sonic boom? Sometimes planes make them when they fly over your head really, really fast.
You’ve heard of the T-Rex, right? Some people call him the King of The Dinosaurs. T-Rex was one of the best hunters of all time… all the other dinosaurs ran when they saw him coming. A T-Rex was about 13 feet tall (taller than your parents!), weighed about 9 tons (almost as much a school bus), and could run almost as fast as a deer!
Some dinosaurs could see in the dark! The Velociraptors were hunters that were about the size of a big turkey. They had long claws and were really fast… in addition to having super night vision powers! Ask your parents if they’ve ever seen any movies with Velociraptors in them.
One dinosaur learned to be a really good swimmer! She was called the Spinosaurus, and she actually had webbed feet, like a duck. She was such a good hunter, she could even catch sharks! A Spinosaurus could get pretty big too: almost 60 feet long, which is bigger than T-rex... and longer than your school bus!
Do you have any toys that look like this guy? His name is Triceratops. He would grow to be about 30 feet long, weighed about 20 tons, had 3 horns on top of his head, and ate plants. Triceratops lived in what is now North America, and the first fossil was found in 1889!
So what happened to all the dinosaurs? Well, you probably know that they disappeared a long, long time ago. We call this going “extinct.”
Scientists are still working on figuring out exactly why all the dinosaurs disappeared. Many scientists think that a meteor, which is like a giant rock from outer space, hit the earth so fast that it changed the Earth’s climate. Some scientists think it was because of volcanoes, or that the dinosaurs wound up running out of food. Maybe one day, when you’re older, you can help the scientists figure out this mystery!
You might think that it’s sad that the dinosaurs disappeared. But for a lot of other animals, it was great news! Lots of creatures, like elephants, cats, and dolphins, were able to find new homes with the dinosaurs gone.
And by the way, there is still one kind of dinosaur left, and you probably see them every day. They’re called…
Birds! That’s right, birds are descended from dinosaurs, so technically there are still lots of dinos left on Earth. Good thing chickens aren’t 75 feet long, though!
The How’s and Why’s of Daylight Savings Time
On Sunday, November 5, you should wake feeling slightly better rested than usual, as you’ll have gained an hour of sleep due to daylight savings time. Messing with our bedside clocks (not to mention our internal clocks) may seem strange, but there is a good reason.
Why do we change our clocks an hour back?
To understand why we move our clocks forward and back in the spring and fall, we need to understand why we have seasons in the first place. You see, the Earth does not stand perfectly straight as it rotates around the Sun. Rather, it rotates at a tilt. This means that the part of our planet that’s tilted toward the Sun has warmer, lighter days for half of the year and colder, then darker days for the other half, as the Earth makes its full, year-long rotation. Most of us live for those warm summer days when our part of the world is tilted toward the Sun. Those days – and Benjamin Franklin – are the reason for daylight savings time. Franklin was the first to publicly observe that most of the world was sleeping through those glorious, bright, warm, early morning summer hours, essentially wasting them. A British builder named William Willet was the next to push for a shift in time, to push the bright sunny summer hours from morning to evening, when people could enjoy them rather than sleep through them. Willet proposed shifting the time gradually, say 20 minutes a Sunday for four consecutive weeks. His plan was adopted first by Germany, then by Britain, who called the program Sun Time. Other countries followed suit, including the U.S., in 1918.
Tips & Tricks for getting and keeping your kids in bed
And yes, daylight savings time gives us nice, long summer hours. And yes, research indicates that it also saves energy (more time playing at the park in the evening means fewer lights on and dishwashers running) and decreases evening traffic accidents. But daylight savings time can be brutal for those of us with kids. Have you ever tried to put your kids down for the night while the Sun was still shining bright? Or to wake them up an hour early in the morning? Good luck! But there is hope. Willet had the right idea in terms of gradually introducing this change. Beginning about a week before the time changes this fall, start pushing bedtime by about 15 minutes each day (your kids are going to love this!). Then, try to keep them in bed an hour later on Saturday and until the equivalent of their regular wake-up time on Sunday. The goal is that they’ll be just tired enough by Sunday night to go to bed at their regular but now adjusted time. As always, avoid electronics, sugar, and crazy, active play in the hour before they climb into bed. Ah, daylight savings time. We relish that extra hour of sleep in the fall and loathe the loss of an hour in the spring, but, to quote Danny Zuko, “Oh, those summer nights!
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Learning Trees: Matching the Solar System
Learning about the solar system can feel disconnected from everyday life and very far away. This solar system matching activity uses a learning tree to bring lessons from outer space a little closer to home.
Getting Started
We began by putting the planets in order by their distance from the sun. This first step is physical, visual and practical, and helps kids see and understand the solar system.
Play A Solar System Matching Game
First, I wrote the names of the planets on index cards then attached paper clips and a loop of wire to each. This made it easier to hang each tag on a tree branch. Christmas decoration hooks or twist ties can also work. We simply used what we had on hand.
Index cards labelled with each planet's name
Add a loop of wire or an ornament hook for easy hanging
Then, we hung the sun from the ceiling of the living room. Because the inflatable sun is so large, it made sense to hang it up above the tree to provide more space for the planets.
Next, we hung the index cards around the tree. Mercury, the planet closest to the sun, sat at the very top and was only a few inches away from the inflatable sun hanging from the ceiling. We circled the rest of the index cards around the tree in the same order of the planets in the solar system.
Mercury at the top of the tree followed by Venus, then Earth.
The index cards circled the tree matching the order of the planets from the sun.
Each inflatable planet (and the sun) has convenient loops on the plug that make it easy to hang up.
Then, my four-year old daughter got to work. First, she identified Mercury in the row of planets we’d set out earlier and then looked for the matching index card.At four, she is pre-reading, so I asked her to find the index card that started with “M” near the top of the tree. She found the match and hung the planet up.
Then we moved on to Venus, Earth, the moon and the other planets. One by one, she matched each planet to its tag on the tree.With a larger tree, most of the planets will fit. With a smaller tree like ours, Uranus and Pluto sat on the floor.By the end of the activity, we had a Christmas tree loaded with planets, my daughter had a new visual understanding of the solar system and she recognized and matched the planets with their name tags.
How will you use the Giant Inflatable Solar System in learning with your kids?
That's one full tree!
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