Learning about fossils

Today we gathered our prior knowledge about our inquiry. 

Here is what we knew about dinosaurs - 

Dinosaurs

• Animal

• Predator
• Dino is the root word
• ‘Saurs’ means something
• Species
• Extinct
• Huge
• Large bones
• Long necks
• Eggs
• Sharp teeth
• Long tails
• Eat people
• Different kinds
• Spikes
• Horns
• Mammals
• 4 legs
• Some are vegetarians
• Locked up in a cage
• Eat grass
• Some have wings
• Died in the 19’s
• Different colours
• Roar loud
• Different names
• Tall
• Scare people away
• Spikes around their head
• Two arms
• Some are friendly
• Similar to dragons
• Shell
• Extinct long before Christ  - BC
• Hunt food
• People killed dinosaurs with hunting rifles
• Dinosaurs got short hands and bite them with their mouth
• Fight other dinosaurs
• Rough
• Strong long bones
• Big and long
• Muscles
• Faster then flash
• Fast and have long teeth
• Eat other dinosaurs
• Big feet
• Didn’t eat people - Ana.
• Eat other species.

Here is our prior knowledge about fossils -

In the afternoon we used this slideshow to learn about fossils -



We wrote sentences as we read through and talked about the new/difficult words and wrote what they meant. 

Here is what we wrote - 

Fossils are dead animals or plants. They are usually skeletons found embedded in rock. Sometimes fossils are footprints or poo. Small animals or insects get stuck in tree sap which hardens and traps them forever. Large animals can get trapped in ice, or their carcass gets trapped in layers of rock. Over thousands of years, pressure builds up and the ground. Next the mould left is filled with minerals that form rock. This rock shape is the fossil - an exact replica of the dinosaurs. This process takes 10,000 years. Palaeontologists find fossils when the top layer of dirt or rock washes away.

Carcass - dead body

Dissolved - when something disappears in water

Mould - a shape that can be filled

Erode -

Vital - important, critical, crucial, necessary

Climate - weather

Siberia - a country near Russia where a fossil was found

Mammoth - a giant animal that looks like an elephant, but it is hairy and has big tusks. they are extinct now.