As soon as Halloween is past, it is time for Dinovember!
Dinovember started in 2012, when Refe and Susan Tuma spent the month convincing their children that their plastic dinosaurs came to life at night, just for the month of November. Their photographs are glorious. Dinovember became a media sensation in 2013, leading to a book, What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night in 2014 and a sequel in 2015. The Dinosaurs (hosted by the Tumas) can be seen on Tumblr and Facebook–or you can follow Rex on Twitter. They even inspired a song that makes me smile.
I’ll admit, Dinovember just makes me happy. It is probably most appropriate as family fun, but I’ve tried to think about how it might be incorporated into curriculum-appropriate school activities. Here are a few thoughts.
- For young students, how about some teacher-created dino-scenes to inspire creative writing or story telling? You could even teach sequencing by discussing (or writing) what happened before the dinosaur event and what might happen after it.
- Slightly older students could create their own scenes and write stories for younger children to enjoy.
- Still older students could do something similar, but with more careful study of the conventions of children’s literature and the process of writing for a particular audience.
- Or how about art class using Dinovember to teach about photographic composition, mood, and editing?
- Dinosaur math? What if students were challenged to calculate the total weight (or length or height) of the collected Dinosaurs, if they were real? How might students calculate the weight of meat (or plants) the dinosaurs would need to eat if they were to suddenly transform to authentic size? If the dinosaurs ate the family’s eggs, how many eggs would they need?
I’m sure you can come up with more ideas. If you do, please share. Dinovember is too much fun to miss.
creativiteach 