St Aiden’s Homeschool

Footsteps on the Road to Learning

I’m Learning About Dinosaurs

Tyrannosaurus Rex
Includes activities on Earth Science & Palaeontology
Lesson Plans, Crafts, Activity Sheets & Teacher/Parent Guides/Resources

Gr K-6
www.staidenshomeschool.com
Donnette E Davis
 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6
What is a predator?
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What is a scavenger?
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What is an omnivore?
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What is a carnivore?
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What is it called when a person or animal eats only vegetation

i.e. no meat?
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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6

What is it called when a person or animal eats only meat and

no vegetation?
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What is called when a person or animal eats meat and

vegetation?
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Can you think of any names of the different types of dinosaurs?

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Can you think of any movies or films that have

dinosaurs in them?
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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6

Triceratops Structure GNU Free Doc License

Source:
http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=File:Triceratops_Struct.jpg&filetimestamp=20050128115030

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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6

Tyrannosaurus Rex
Stegosaurus
Allosaurus
Apatosaurus
Pterosaurs
Triceratops
Plesiosaur
Ichthyosaur
Pachycephalosaurus
Velociraptor
Herrerasaurus
Ankylosaurus
Iguanodon
Iguanodon
Brontosaurus

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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6

Tyrannosaurus
Tyrannosaurus rex, or T. rex for short, was a dinosaur that lived on Earth about 65 to
70 million years ago, during the Cretaceous period. T. rex is one of the largest
carnivorous (meat-eating) dinosaurs ever discovered.
T. rex from outside the Senckenberg Museum in Germany.
Source: Wikipedia GNU FDL

What was their body shape?

Tyrannosaurus rex was up to 13 meters (42 feet) long, 5 meters (16 feet) tall, and
weighed 4 to 6 tons (8,820 lb to 13,220 lbs.)- longer then a bus, and heavier then an
elephant. It had a forward tilt, deep jaws, huge teeth, long tail, and tiny arms (also
known as forelimbs). T. red’s jaw alone was about 1.3 meters long and had fifty to
sixty bone-crunching teeth that were up to 10 centimetres long. Its arms were very
stubby, no longer then a human being's. They were very strong, able to lift up to two
hundred kilograms, but were not long enough to touch each other! T. rex stood on
two powerful hind legs, each ending with a three toed foot, resembling a bird's
foot, only much larger.

T. rex skeleton from the Smithsonian

Museum of Natural History
Source: Wikipedia GNU FDL

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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6

T. rex skull from the Palais de la Découverte in Paris.

Source: Wikipedia GNU FDL

What did they eat?

T. rex was a very big meat-eating dinosaur. It would have been at the top of the
food chain. It is known to have fed on other large dinosaurs, such as
Edmontosaurus, Anatotitan, and Triceratops, and probably could have swallowed
smaller dinosaurs in a single bite.

One scientist believes that T. rex was a scavenger (an animal that eats already
dead animals). He argues that it might not have been fast enough to catch prey.
Other scientists believe that T. rex probably scavenged and hunted, like most living
meat-eaters (such as tigers and lions). T. rex bite marks found on the bones of
Edmontosaurus and Triceratops that have healed show that Tyrannosaurus did hunt
at least some of the time - and also that its prey was sometimes lucky enough to
escape.

One thing that T. rex did not eat was people. People didn't appear on earth until
over 60 million years later, much too late for anyone to ever be afraid of being
hunted down by a T. rex.

When did they live?

Tyrannosaurus lived about 70 to 65 million years ago in the late Cretaceous Period.
T. rex was among the last of the big dinosaurs. Like all dinosaurs, T. rex lived in the
Mesozoic era.

What was their habitat?

Tyrannosaurus is believed to have lived in forests, near rivers, and in areas that were
open. Mild seasons also would have been most favourable to Tyrannosaurus fossils
have been found in western North America and possibly Asia.

How were they discovered?

The famous fossil hunter Barnum Brown found the first Tyrannosaurus fossil in 1905 .
Tyrannosaurus was not the dinosaur's name until 1905, when it was given that name
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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6
by Henry Fairfield Osborn. About 3,000 Tyrannosaurus fossils have been found, from
pieces of teeth to nearly complete skeletons. Only one possible Tyrannosaurus
footprint has been found.

What do we need to learn?

• The colour of their skin. One thing we cannot tell from fossils is colour!
• Whether T. rex was feathered, scaly, or both. Some of its cousins had feathers
like birds, while others had scales.
• Whether T. rex was just a scavenger or a scavenger and a hunter. There are
very few hunting animals that will not scavenge, and very few scavengers
which never hunt.
• What is a scavenger?
• What is a predator?
• If T. rex had the ability to run.
• Was it really the largest predator? In 1995 some parts of a predator that
seems even larger than T. rex were found in Argentina! They called it
Giganotosaurus, which was about 45 ft long (about a meter [yard] longer
than T. rex). There have also been some parts of even larger carnivorous
dinosaurs found since then, such as Spinosaurus and Chacarodontosaurus.

T. rex footprint at a museum

Source: Wikipedia GNU FDL

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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6

In your own words answer the following questions in as much detail as you possibly can. For younger
learners it would be beneficial for the parent/educator to make notes based on the child’s answers.

What did they look like? (Their size, how they walked, some interesting facts
about their different parts, etc)
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What did they eat? (Plant-eaters, omnivorous, or carnivorous, or more?)

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When did they live? (Not all species of dinosaurs were alive during the K-T event.
There were several development periods for different dinosaur species and some
were likely "ancestors" of other dinosaurs found in later periods.)
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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6

Where did they live? (Ocean, shallow seas, jungle, grasslands, etc.)
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How were they discovered? (Discussions about where the fossils were found and
perhaps even names and information about the discoverer.)
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What do we need to learn? (To demonstrate that science is still evolving and
that we don't know all of the answers.)
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 Learning About Dinosaurs K-6
Acknowledgements, Thanks & Terms of Use
We would love to hear your comments on this workbook. If you have a moment please email your
comments and suggestions to feedback@staidenshomeschool.com

Other Volumes In Our Series Of Workbooks

AFRICA
ALPHABET, VOWELS & CONSONANTS
ANIMALS
COLOURS, SHAPES, PUZZLES
DOLCH WORDS , WORD FAMILIES & PHONICS
NUMBERS AND COUNTING

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Special thanks to:

U.S. Department of Education, Office of
Communications and Outreach,
Helping Your Child Learn Science,
Washington, D.C., 2005.
AND
http://edc2.usgs.gov

All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).

Donnette E Davis © 2009

St Aiden’s Homeschool, South Africa & The Child Development Spot
P O Box 13720
Cascades
3202
KwaZulu-Natal
Republic of South Africa
www.staidenshomeschool.com

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