Sep 04 2012
How Big is a T-Rex?
Lucas and Jackson explore Dino World.
Dylan, Ayden, Jackson, and Hutton enjoy playing with the dinosaurs in Dino World.
Beatrice and Maria use watercolor to represent dinosaurs.
Addie paints a water dinosaur.
Today, our class looked an 8.5 x 11 picture of a T-Rex from the Children’s Museum. We talked about how the picture was just a representation of how big the actual dinosaur was- we knew he was much bigger than the size of the paper! Mr. Henderson and I challenged the kids with a simple question- how could you show us how big a T-Rex really was? We pointed out there was a scale on the picture of 1centimeters = .5 meters and allowed the children to explore various measurement tools in our classroom. Some friends went straight to the rulers and yardsticks, some went for more non-conventional forms of measurement: using bears, unifix cubes, and looking closely at our dinosaur toys. One of the most exciting things about an inquiry like this is the conversation that happens while we are wrestling with new ideas. Many of our friends chose to work in pairs or small groups and talk through their thinking with one another. While we didn’t quite solve the mystery today, we will resume our work tomorrow and pick up where our thinking left off!
Here are a few snippets of insight from our friends.
I’m trying to see how many bones he has to measure him. 20 bones! He has 20 bones! Beatrice
If a T-Rex is a meter, that means he would be 100 centimeters. Lucas
I think he would have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 centimeters. Because that’s half of this stick. Makenzi (talking about half of the ruler’s 30 centimeters AND making the connection that we need half of something- incredible!)
We have to see how close it can be to the cubes. Dylan
Its very interesting! Jackson
J’Den measures our picture.
Maria and Amiah use the plastic dinosaur figurines to get a measurement.
Beatrice checks her measurements.
Jackson, Dylan, and Regan are on to something… they line up the yard sticks along the floor…
More friends work together to line the sticks along the floor.
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