Homeschool Science Curriculum:

Dinosaurs for Kids

Your homeschool science curriculum is about to come alive in the age of the dinosaurs! Our Dinosaurs for Kids activities are for everyone from age 7 up through High School.

You'll make drawings, download maps and delve in the coal scuttle - all to uncover the Story of Life on Earth.

If you're looking for ways to make a homeschool science curriculum, the Story of Life on Earth has to be there somewhere. It's perhaps the most amazing way to learn science you can find and gives your child a glimpse of how incredible our Planet really is.

We started Dinosaurs for Kids when William and Catherine were 11 and 9. Two years later we're still enjoying ourselves and.... still going!

Don't panic, I'm not suggesting you devote that length of time to Dinosaurs for Kids in your homeschooling curriculum - unless you want to. Just pick out the bits that look fun to your child - an afternoon will do fine. You'll see I've put more ideas here so you can turn the the whole project into a brilliant dinosaur lapbook for kids.

As you can see, the first thing you need to do is start gathering everything together. You'll be creating a giant display (or lapbook) showing how Life on Earth has evolved.

You could start your homeschool science curriculum by looking at which dinosuars lived in your State with this great kids dinosaur guide from About.com.

Obviously, any family who follows a strict Biblical belief would have to adapt their homeschooling curriculum to suit their own interpretation.

How do you start Dinosaurs for Kids? First of all, pick your Period - Cambrian, Jurassic, Cretaceous or whatever catches your eye. Naturally enough, we thought we'd start our homeschool curriculum activities in the beginning 4,500 million years ago but you could choose anywhere.

Melbourne Museum has a great timeline which your kids could use to decide where they want to begin their homeschool science curriculum.

The idea is to bend your homeschooling curriculum to whatever talents your child has; my two love drawing dinosaurs so that was easy.

I have to warn you here that I'm not leaving you out of the homeschooling curriculum! You'll know already from our homeschool science: Rainforest for Kids Activities, that most of our activities mean you getting stuck in too!

If you're being held back from joining in with Dinosaurs for Kids by that old chestnut telling you that you can't draw, just remember that no-one really knows precisely what dinosaurs looked like so you can't go too far wrong!

Rob loves doing water colours so that was his contribution to our homeschooling curriculum; I like crafty things so the eagle-sized dragonfly Meganeura is down to me.

If you have younger children, they can get lots of facts about dinosaurs and colour in some print-outs from Julie's site: www.kids-dinosaurs.com.

The first thing you need to do as part of your homeschool science curriculum is to fetch a large piece of coloured card.

Why not start Dinosaurs for Kids by sticking down:

• Lichen (Pre-Cambrian).
• Sponge (Cambrian). Sadly I found we had some real sponge dredged from the seabed but the bathroom sort would do.
• Ginkgo leaf (Triassic). We used a laminated one.
• Feathers (Jurassic). We sellotaped down artificial ones because they had pretty colours!
• Coal (Carboniferous).
• Piece of Magnolia tree (Cretaceous).
• Chalk (Cretaceous).

You might have to ask round your friends as part of your homeschool curriculum. Does anyone have a Magnolia tree growing in their garden? A trip to our local park got us ginkgo leaves. It all adds to the fun.

As you'll see, there's lots more to do. Dinosaurs for Kids is part of what must be one of the biggest homeschool lesson plans on Earth!

You can see dinosaurs brought to life with videos, games and lots of interesting facts at the BBC.

In the second and third parts of our homeschooling science curriculum we'll go fossil hunting, hatch a live Triops to see first-hand a creature that existed in the age of the dinosaurs, and uncover a freshly-laid dinosaur egg.

• PART TWO: Homeschooling Science: Dinosaur Kids Activity
• PART THREE: Homeschool Lesson Plans: Dinosaurs for Kids Activities

Other activities you can try:

• Take Home School Science into Orbit! Make your own model solar system.
• Homeschool Unit Studies: Ocean Creatures.

Our homeschool science curriculum is all about waking up wonder, because your child's curiosity forms the basis on which to build all your science teaching.

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