Teaching young students about dinosaurs is always fun and exciting for everyone. In fact, my students roar with excitement as soon as we start this unit! Want to know what makes it even better? Dinosaur lapbook activities are my go-to when it comes to hands-on learning for this topic. They offer a simple, yet effective way to cover a wide variety of prehistoric topics, and my students love them! If you’re ready to take your dinosaur unit up a notch, come along to take a closer look at some of these fun dinosaur lapbook activities!
What is a Lapbook
If you aren’t familiar with lapbooks, let’s change that! These will easily become a favorite in your classroom once you see how simple they are to teach students in a hands-on and interactive way.
Lapbooks are a great tool to use in the classroom! They are comparable to an interactive notebook, but they focus on only one subject at a time. This allows students to really dig into the subject. It also keeps all their information in one place, which is great for young students!
A great bonus to lapbooks is that they are so simple to create and don’t require a ton of prep work or time. These go beyond normal day-to-day worksheets but are still easy to create. And… they take learning to a new level!
I love to use lapbooks with themed learning. You can create lapbooks for just about any subject you’d like. The students love having the finished book, and they are so proud of their work.
Let’s talk about all the fantastic dinosaur ideas and activities this Dinosaur Lapbook resource has to offer!
Prepping Your Dinosaur Lapbook
Before you get started adding all the information to the dinosaur lapbook, you will need to collect just a few items to get you off on the right foot! There are a few materials you will need and just a small amount of prep work to get you on your way to creating a dinosaur masterpiece with your class. Here are some things you will need to create your very own lapbook:
- manila file folders
- crayons and/or colored pencils
- glue
- scissors
- print outs OR dinosaur lapbook activities
Now you are all set! Not too bad, right? Most of these items are in your everyday classroom, to begin with!
Once you grab all your items, you are ready to jump in and create your very own dinosaur masterpiece!
Starting Our Dinosaur Discovery
Dinosaurs are always a fun and exciting subject to learn about in the classroom.
Students love to learn about all the different types of dinosaurs and fun facts surrounding the cool creatures! Most students are at least somewhat familiar with dinosaurs, which makes it even more exciting to talk about. Your class will learn new facts about dinosaurs, but also get to review facts they already know.
This resource is packed with lessons, facts, and information about dinosaurs that go beyond just science. Before we jump in, I like to sit and chat with students about dinosaurs. What do they already know? What is their favorite dinosaur? Have they ever seen a cool dinosaur movie? This sets the stage for the lesson and gets students focused and ready to learn more! Let’s check out some of the fun activities included in this bundle!
Learning About Dinosaurs with a Dinosaur Lapbook
Students will love describing dinosaurs using the Dinosaurs can/have/are graphic organizer. I love to have students add what they already know about dinosaurs at the beginning of our unit. Then, at the end of the unit, we come back and add lots more. It’s a great way for students to see just what they learned.
Another activity focuses on learning all about the body parts of a dinosaur. They will learn about their teeth, plates, tail, and how to identify them. This is a great kickstart to the lesson! You can’t have a dinosaur lesson without talking about the different types of dinosaurs and how they differ from one another.
Most students will have a favorite dinosaur and will be familiar with popular dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but there are other types they may not know much about. This is a great way to show them the different species of dinosaurs that used to roam the Earth. There is also a great section that talks about their habitats, diets, and babies!
Vocabulary Activities
Anytime we talk about a new subject, I like to include a vocabulary section. There are usually words that correspond with the lessons that may be new and unfamiliar to students. This is a great learning experience, but it also helps them to understand and comprehend the lesson better. In this dinosaur lapbook, there are vocabulary words like paleontologist, herbivore, carnivore, and extinct, which students are taught. By learning the word and their definitions, students are empowered to start using these new words in their speaking and writing. This is likely the first time students have seen these words, so it is a great addition to the book!
Paleontology Fun
Students will also learn about paleontologists! Paleontologists are scientists who study and identify dinosaurs. Students love hearing about how these scientists spend their days digging for old dinosaur bones! They also find the work of piecing a dinosaur skeleton together like a puzzle very fascinating. There’s really not much that a paleontologist does that students won’t love learning about. When they are done learning, they will jump right into the Paleontologists can/have/ are describing activity.
Comparing Dinosaurs
There is an entire section dedicated to researching different types of dinosaurs. This guided research activity is the perfect way to introduce even the youngest students to basic research concepts. It’s also a great way to talk about the difference between facts and opinions.
Additionally, there is a comparison activity that allows students to compare dinosaurs to similar and familiar reptiles that exist alongside us today. Students are amazed to find out that the dinosaurs are related to many animals they have seen.
As you can see, there is no shortage of fun and engaging activities to add to your lapbook that are both fun and educational at the same time! If these activities are sounding great to you, then lapbooks could be a perfect addition to your classroom! While we discussed a few of the awesome activities packed into this bundle, there is so much more learning to be had with this dinosaur lapbook!
Digital Dinosaur Lapbook Activities
Did I mention that these dinosaur lapbook activities also come in a digital format? Yes, really! If you’re teaching virtually or simply would like to incorporate some technology into your lessons, you’ll love this option. The Digital Dinosaur Lapbook includes many of the same activities as the printable version, except it uses drag-and-drop features within Google Slides. Students will be able to fill out each slide using the interactive features, or you can project it up on the interactive whiteboard and work through it as a class.
This is my favorite way to use the digital version! Inside the resource, you will find fun dinosaur videos that you can play on the screen for everyone to watch. Then, you can dive into practice and complete a few slides as a class. This is a great option for whole-group instruction before you send students off to complete a section of the printable version on their own.
Alternatively, you can assign a copy of these activities to each child in your classroom. They can work on them with a tablet or computer as part of your center rotations, homework, or as a virtual learning day assignment. No matter what you choose, the digital version is a great way to keep the dinosaur fun rolling in your classroom!
Grab Your Dinosaur Lapbook!
Your students are going to love creating their very own lapbook that they can keep and show off to family and friends once it is complete. Plus, they will learn so much in the process! If you are interested in this low-prep dinosaur activity, you can grab all of the printable activities right here in my store! Or, if you want to check out the digital version, you can find that here. Don’t hesitate, get your students diving deeper into the world of dinosaurs and all the cool things that go along with it!
If you can’t decide between the two, I’ve also got a money-saving bundle that you can find here. This will allow you to use both the printable dinosaur lapbook activities and the digital dinosaur lapbook activities with your students. This is a great option if you like the idea of modeling and teaching with the digital version on your interactive whiteboard.
And if you find that lapbooks are the thing for you and your students, you can find many more fun and engaging science lapbook ideas!
Looking for More Resources?
We love hands-on learning in my classroom, and I bet you do too! Check out these posts next for more teaching inspiration!
- 7 Apple Activities For Hands-On Learning
- 3 Math Manipulatives for Hands-On Learning
- Hands-On Phonics Activities for the Primary Classroom
Save These Dinosaur Lapbook Activities for Later
Make sure you pin these dinosaur lapbook activities to your favorite classroom Pinterest board so you can find them quickly and easily whenever you need them!
