Imaginary Pop-Up Dinosaurs

Julie Haight
Second Grade
Mark West Elementary

Use as a culminating activity for a dinosaur unit.

Supplies:

• 1 piece of 12 X 18 construction paper (per student) folded in half horizontally with a pop-up cut in the middle
• glue stick
• scissors
• pencil
• scrap drawing paper
• 'My Fictional Dinosaur' worksheet
• writing paper for rough draft of story final copy writing paper

Miscellaneous:

• construction paper scraps in various colors
• tree and bush templates
• books about dinosaurs for reference, if desired
• sample of pop-up picture
• chart with ideas for background

Using the information from the dinosaur unit, and any books available, model putting different parts of dinosaurs together to make a new one. The students then fill out their worksheet about their own imaginary dinosaur, drawing a rough picture of what the dinosaur would look like. They then draw a bigger outline only on scrap paper and cut it out. They can use this template for their pop-up picture.

Trace template onto construction paper and cut out. Place dinosaur on pop-up on construction paper, but don't glue on yet. The students decide what they want for their background after seeing where their dinosaur will be in the picture. Possible ideas for backgrounds are mountains, volcanoes, lava, trees, bushes, rivers, rocks, other smaller dinosaurs, clouds, suns.

Students then cut or tear out shapes for their background and details for their dinosaur. No pencil marks allowed on the finished picture. Students may not draw anything on their picture, only cut/torn construction paper.

Once students have as much background as they want, they place the background pieces on their picture, then glue them where they want them. Only after the background is glued on do they glue the dinosaur onto the pop-up.

Students then use the written information from their worksheet to write a rough draft story about their imaginary dinosaur. After the paper is edited for content, detail, spelling, and punctuation the student copies it on the final draft paper and glues it to the bottom of their picture.