Roar: A Dinosaur Tour
Prepare to tour the world of dinosaurs! This book will delight readers with simple text and interesting facts about these prehistoric creatures. With endpapers that provide a pronunciation guide and nicknames for each dinosaur, young readers will devour this book over and over. Which dinosaurs walked on two legs? Which ones shook the ground when they walked? Was an Iguanodon slow-moving or fast? You can find the answers to these wonders and more when you embark on the dinosaur tour!
Pennsylvania Center for the Book Awards
Book Activities & Discussion Ideas
Before reading, show the children the inside cover of the book with pictures of dinosaurs and information about how to pronounce their names. Point to each dinosaur, say its name, and invite children to repeat it with you. Flip to the back page, point to each dinosaur’s nickname, read them aloud and again, invite children to say them with you. During reading, discuss the characteristics of the dinosaurs that the children see in the images (for example, some have spikes, long tails, short snouts, skinny bodies, big teeth, horns, and so on). This deceptively simple, nonfiction text compares the many types of dinosaurs with each other and gives the youngest dinosaur lovers the pleasure of adding to their “dinosaur expertise.” After reading, the children may be invited to share which dinosaur they find the most interesting, find more books about that species, be that dinosaur in dramatic play, and/or write and draw their own small dinosaur books.
Ask parents about their children’s interest in dinosaurs. Do they have a child who likes to find out everything they possibly can about dinosaurs? Is their child a “dinosaur expert”? Tell parents that a sustained, intense interest in a topic such as dinosaurs helps children to develop their knowledge, improve their attention span, and deepen cognitive growth. Discuss the ways families can support a child’s curiosity about dinosaurs. Some suggestions may be: finding the dinosaur section at the local library, visiting a dinosaur museum, watching specials about dinosaurs on television nature channels, and encouraging children to write about and draw their own dinosaurs. Point out to parents that Roar: A Dinosaur Tour is a book that contains a helpful pronunciation key for dinosaur names in the front inside cover.