You know by now that the mere mention of dinosaurs will grab any student’s attention. With these 3 fun and engaging dinosaur activities, you’ll harness your young learners’ love of everything prehistoric to teach them even more interesting facts about their favorite dinosaurs!

Plus, check out these 23 nonfiction books about dinos.

A not-so-friendly competition.
One of the best ways for your students to learn about dinosaurs is by pitting two of the most popular prehistoric creatures against one another. In Who Would Win? Tyrannosaurus Rex vs Velociraptor, your young readers will not only learn a lot of cool, fun facts about these two prehistoric predators, but will hone their critical reading skills and strengthen their ability to make sound predictions. And with this Super-Predator Dino activity, your students can create their own dinosaur to face-off against Tyrannosaurus rex and the velociraptor!

An unexpected writing challenge.
Of course, your students don’t want to write a boring report on dinosaurs, they want to write a beautiful poem or an action and adventure story to show off all they know about their favorite prehistoric creatures. This dinosaur writing activity is the perfect way to teach about dinosaurs while helping young writers learn about different genres and improve their content-area reading and writing skills.

Make new discoveries.
You can’t teach about dinosaurs without talking about fossils—it’s how we’re able to know so much about our prehistoric friends. To help students understand the role fossils play in the study of dinosaurs, encourage your young paleontologists to make their own models of fossils. With a little bit of modeling clay and a variety of objects—sea shells, shark teeth, even everyday classroom items—students can study the impressions they make with one another and imagine what future scientists would think of them if these new fossils are discovered a million years from now.

Looking for a few more fun and effective ways to teach your students about dinosaurs? Check out these dinosaur story starters for even more prehistoric learning fun!