One night, Nanna teaches Little J, Big Cuz and Levi about the star constellations through stories of the past. At school, Ms Chen encourages the students to investigate the evidence of dinosaurs. Little J and Levi set out to find evidence of dinosaurs themselves, happening upon the fossil of Diprotodon, also called Wombat Rex.

Elaborate - Share observations and ideas

Theme - FOSSIL

After viewing Little J & Big Cuz, Episode 5 ‘Wombat Rex’, engage students with the following activities.

Excursion or incursion

Visit a local museum to observe and document fossils from different eras in Australian history. Students can either take digital photos (with permission) or make drawing/s of the fossils they like. To support students in their understanding of fossils and how they are made, incorporate a short talk by a museum’s education officer.

or

Invite an Aboriginal Elder/or recognised representative and/or Torres Strait Elder/or recognised representative to speak to students about the local stories of the Dreaming. Look at local Aboriginal paintings and carvings and/or Torres Strait Islander paintings and carvings to observe how the ‘past’ is represented. Have students learn selected words of their local language related to the focus for their learning.

or

Contact your state or territory museum and ask if they conduct a borrowing program for schools. If possible, borrow a selection of fossils and information about Australian dinosaurs, particularly those that roamed the local area.

Other activities

• Collect a non-living object from each student to make a time capsule to be buried in the school grounds. The time capsule can be retrieved when the class has reached year 6 or prior to their exiting the school.
• Make a class mural of drawings of dinosaurs and dinosaur fossils, either going forward or backward in time, or in categories of dinosaur traits.
• Create dinosaurs from plasticine/modelling compound. Students can take digital images of them in different positions. Load the images into an animation app., such as ‘Inanimate Alice’/Snappy’ to produce an animation sequence using the different dinosaur designs.
• Create a digital novel using the Snappy tool found in the website, Inanimate Alice. Have students develop their own stories about a dinosaur character, using the scientific information they have learnt. Invite students to create an image of their character as a ‘splash’ image and record the student telling their story as a podcast/videocast. Upload to the school website so that parents can access.
• Create a game based on ‘Guess Who?’ but use dinosaurs and/or dinosaur fossils rather than the heads of people. The students play with a partner to guess which dinosaur they have kept as their reference. The questions the students ask will need to rely on observation and scientific knowledge about dinosaurs.