11.14.13 Dino Day

So today was a pretty entertaining day. We only had a group of 6 kids because the book fair was going on and the facilities that the other kids were able to use were being accessed for the book fair area. This was a blessing. These are great kids, they are just really high strung and I don't think my Tech Club partner John has ever had to watch little kids before. He sometimes tends to freeze up just a little bit when they become too roudy. But he did a great job for the project that he found for the kids to do. We worked from a website that we had the kids find, we helped them type it in but they navigated it most of the way, on Scholastic Kids that had them learning about Dinosaurs.
There was a small quiz at the beginning that they went throw and most of them understood the questions pretty well. It asked them which types of dinosaurs looked like what and if there are any dinosaurs were still living today.... most of them yelled, "Chickens!!!" That was pretty funny.  (I think I have a good sense of humor and there are times during instructions when it is really hard not to giggle at an answer they produce.) From the test we went onto the a "Construct a Dino" activity. I think that giving them the test before we started was a good but easy way for them to remember what they had learned about dinosaurs and it helped them to create dinos that would be able to get around. Through the website, the kids were able to pick which type of dino they wanted, Herbivore or Omnivore, and from there the site gave them a list of heads, bodies, tails, and legs to create a dino that they think would survive a "journey". They were able to make each part bigger or smaller by a control used at the bottom of the screen controlled by the key board. I found this helpful because it gets them acquainted with  using the key board and having them memorize which keys are where.
As for constructing a dino, many thought that it would be a good idea to have a larger headed dino paired with a smaller bodied one. They quickly found out that their dinos wouldn't last the journey and they would have to start all over again. They began to take the challenge more seriously and with help from each other created a dino that could finish the journey as well as fend off predators or "grab a bite to eat".
They all seemed to be really into the creating a dino that would work and therefore began to remember which keys to press and what they were supposed to be looking for to create a successful dino.