Dinosaur & Human Skeleton Observation Activity

We received the Discovery Kids Dinosaur Factivity Kit and Human Body Factivity Kit to check out from Parragon Books as a part of their Book Buddies program. Each comes with an fact & activity book, as well as a model skeleton to build.

My daughter’s first love is books, so she dove into those right away. Then we decided it would be fun to do a skeleton observation activity, building each model and writing down the characteristics of each skeleton, as well as the differences between them.

These are not complex models (the Triceratops has 14 pieces and the Human has 20 pieces), so they are perfect for elementary age and can be put together fairly quickly by a child with a bit of parent assistance. Lilu is seven, so there were a couple of connections that I helped with, but I tried to step back and let her figure out as much as possible. Either way, it’s fun to work on together!

Lilu grabbed a small notebook and pencil to be her official skeleton observation book. Here she wrote down everything we noticed about each skeleton.

Some of Lilu’s observations about the Triceratops skeleton and the Human skeleton:

The dinosaur stood on all four legs, while the human had two legs and stood upright.
The dinosaur skull was much larger than the human skull and also featured a large plate.
The dinosaur spine had “pointy” vertebrae, while the human spine was smoother.
The dinosaur had three horns, which would explain its name, Triceratops.
Both male and female human beings have the same skeleton, so we are all the same at our core.

Then things got a bit silly, with the human riding the dinosaur like a horse and the dinosaur eating the human — both things that Lilu admitted wouldn’t happen in real life, but apparently they were fun to pretend!

We had a lot of fun with our skeleton observation activity, learning some new facts and just goofing off together. Both the Dinosaur Factivity Kit and the Human Body Factivity Kit are available on Amazon — they would make an awesome gift for the little scientist (or dinosaur lover) in your life!

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Stacey aka the Soccer Mom

Stacey is the creator of The Soccer Mom Blog, a Houston Texas mom blog that focuses on positive living for women and families. She loves to share real food recipes, money-saving tips, parenting encouragement, kids activities, DIY tutorials, home hacks, fitness, and so much more! To get to know Stacey even better, click here.

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