Triassic Period Diorama

Holly wrapped up the Triassic Period this week in her dinosaur unit this past week and with that she completed her Triassic Period diorama. I asked her to include vegetation and at least three dinosaurs we looks at and one other kind of creature. She used her main dinosaur book we worked with as inspiration and her notes on vegetation and such.

She first painted it out and then the next day started working on her dinosaur choices and vegetation ideas. Holly included an Alwalkeria, Plateosaraus and Gojirasarus. She included also included snakes. For her vegetation she included ginkgo, a conifer, cyad and a horsetail.

It turned out beautifully and honestly she loved creating this! Giving her some perimeters to work within was a nice challenge. This was her first time creating a diorama - so I was a bit easier on her guidelines. When she works on the Jurassic Period one next time I will increase the expectations a little more.

Dinosaur Unit

Holly is chugging away on her Dinosaur Unit. She is almost finished with the Triassic Period, most likely next week. We have really spent some time reading on the conditions of the Triassic Period, learning about the mass extinction that started and ended that time frame and what life was like. After doing a lot of reading and discussing our readings, Holly & I did a brainstorm of information that would describe the Triassic Period - animals, plant life, extinction, dinosaurs, mammals, insects, the world (Pangea) and the water (Panthalassa). It was a GREAT discussion and brainstorming session!

Holly is recording her findings in a dinosaur book. It is a blank journal with dinosaurs on the cover - as we move along she is making notes and keeping all of her information in there. She loves it!! As well, she is adding some dinosaurs to her time line. Her personal goal is to add four dinosaurs for each period along with plant life. 

As well, we are enjoying several books we own - this is not all of them, but some of them. As well as some fun stuff like a seek and find, sticker book, cards, kids story books and doodle book... all of this adds up to one happy girl!

Dinosaur Time Line

Holly has really been looking forward to this new unit study we will spend a few weeks on, dinosaurs!! Each time we wrap up something she asks if the dinosaur study will be next... the time has finally come. She really enjoys dinosaurs and owns a lot of books, movies, toys and games on dinosaurs - items we will use in conjunction with our unit.

To narrow down the concept of 'dinosaurs' we are taking a look specifically at the Mesozoic Era, otherwise this could be to overwhelming and not give much direction in our journey. Within the Mesozoic Era we will visit the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous time frames and learn a bit about the time frame, flora and choose some specific dinosaurs to learn a bit more on. To track our study Holly will keep a notebook on her work and create a timeline in which she will add items to along the way. At the end of each time frame she will create a diorama representing what we have learned. I also have a few art projects and a little sculpture up my sleeve she will enjoy.

Today she started creating her timeline. We spent time looking at several ways to make a time line, this was the option she picked. She designed it with color choices, reasoned her length of time line, used a model from a book we own to get an estimation on the length of each time frame and put it together. It was a great project!

Once completed she started with the Triassic Period and read up on it and learned about the plant life. She added a card on the plant life listing plants found then. A great start to her timeline, a lot more to come!! I'll add some updates on her project as we move through it... should be fun!