How to Foster Your Child's Interest in Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs can be a great learning tool and are, as most kids know, just plain fun.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Dinosaur Exploration Kit
• Dinosaur Model Kits
• Dinosaur Videos

1. Talk to your child about dinosaurs. What does she know about them? What about dinosaurs interests her?
2. Look over your child's dinosaur collection and take note of what items she has. See which items seem to get the most use.
3. Suggest to your child that she expand her dinosaur knowledge. If your child knows a lot about land dinosaurs, suggest that she explore flying dinosaurs. If your child is interested in dinosaur fossils, help her learn about the periods during which dinosaurs lived and what creatures dinosaurs are related to.
4. Encourage your child to share her dinosaur knowledge with the family. Suggest that she make some posters, place mats or decorations for the entire family to enjoy.
5. Ask your child questions about dinosaurs and then spend some time together researching the answers.
6. Take your child to a science museum to see some real dinosaur bones and fossils.
7. Bring books and videos into the home that have information about dinosaurs.
8. Explore Web sites about dinosaurs together and talk about the pictures and information available.
9. Have your child think about the conflicting theories of how dinosaurs vanished. Ask her to formulate her own ideas about the subject.