Random House Teacher's and Storytime Guide for DINO  Fun article from NPR: Paleontologists have figured out what color a particular DINO was!  Ms. Marzoni's Class has fun with dinosaurs DINO FACTS... Dinosaurs lived long before there were any humans. They were the main animals to roam the earth for over 160 million years. The word dinosaur means "terrible" or "powerful" lizard. Scientists believe that there is a close relationship between dinosaurs and birds. Birds probably evolved from a particular type of bird-like dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs may even have had feathers. Paleontologists are scientists who study fossils and dinosaurs. Even though paleontologists have been able to put bones together to see how dinosaurs look, no one knows what colors or patterns dinosaur skin was. Some dinosaurs walked on four legs, and some dinosaurs walked on two legs. Some could do both. Some dinosaurs were very fast, while others moved very slowly. The largest dinosaurs were up to 100 feet long and 50 feet tall. That's the length of a whole basketball court and as tall as a five story building. But not all dinosaurs were huge. Some were small or medium sized. The smallest dinosaur was about the size of a chicken. Most dinosaurs were plant-eaters. Another word for plant-eater is herbivore. Triceratops and Stegosaurus were plant-eating dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs were meat-eaters. The word for meat-eater is carnivore. T-Rex and Spinosaurus were meat-eating dinosaurs. Some dinosaurs are named for the way they probably behaved. (Paleontologists guessed at their behavior from fossil evidence they found.) Examples of dinosaurs named for their behaviors: Maiasaura means Good Mother Lizard. The paleontologist who found the remains of the Maiasaura named her this because he found nests and the remains of egg shells. This was the first proof of dinosaurs raising and feeding their young. Oviraptor means Egg Stealer. In this case, the guess was wrong. Oviraptors didn't steal eggs. The paleontologist who found the first Oviraptor thought the eggs he saw near the oviraptor's head were eggs of a different kind of dinosaur. He was wrong. They were oviraptor eggs. Useful Dinosaur websites for grades K to 6: A To Z Teacher's Stuff TeAchnology Click here for a fun worksheet!