What Is Good/Poor Camouflage
(for a Baby Dinosaur)?
We have shared a lot of books and ideas about dinosaurs, and
now it is time to show what you know and what you think. You
will use a recording sheet to draw what you have learned. In
the 1st box, show what good camouflage would be for a baby
dinosaur. In the 2nd box, make a drawing to show what poor
camouflage would be for a baby dinosaur. On the back of the
recording sheet, write an explanation for each picture.
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
Suggested Grade Span
K–2
Task
We have shared a lot of books and ideas about dinosaurs, and now it is time to show what you
know and what you think. You will use a recording sheet to draw what you have learned. In the
1st box, show what good camouflage would be for a baby dinosaur. In the 2nd box, make a
drawing to show what poor camouflage would be for a baby dinosaur. On the back of the
recording sheet, write an explanation for each picture.
Big Ideas and Unifying Concepts
Evolution and equilibrium
Interdependence
Life Science Concepts
Evolution, diversity and adaptations
Regulation and behavior
Structure and function
Earth Science Concept
Earth’s history
Mathematics Concepts
Data collection, organization and analysis
Diagrams
Graphs, tables and representations
Measurement
Time Required for the Task
Approximately 45 minutes.
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Context
Dinosaurs and fossils always engage the curiosity of my first graders because they are
fascinated by the diverse sizes, colors, habitats and theories about the dinosaurs’ extinction.
The evolution of dinosaurs’ features can be traced to existing wildlife. My class spent eight to 10
weeks investigating dinosaurs, around topics such as skeleton and bone structure/functions,
hunting and herding instincts, nesting habits and caring of young, and camouflage as a
universal trait. The children explored different 3-D art media to demonstrate how best to
camouflage baby dinosaurs and eggs.
What the Task Accomplishes
This drawing task demonstrates how first graders applied their prior knowledge and
experiences involving adaptations, especially protective coloration and camouflage. The
students used clues and experiences from their art projects, as well as information from
nonfiction and fiction books, videos and technology lab software as evidence to make better
scientific conclusions about how dinosaurs and present-day wildlife utilize camouflage for
survival. By linking this evidence to present-day wildlife, students gain a clearer understanding
of interdependence in the natural environment around them. Through art, dramatization, and
outdoor simulations, the children can understand better the relationship between survival and
characteristics such as eye placement, various innate defensive features and
coloring/camouflage.
How the Student Will Investigate
I shared a lot of fiction and nonfiction books, magazines, and quality dinosaur and real wildlife
videos with my first graders to help them begin their investigations. The children investigated a
variety of art techniques to demonstrate coloring and camouflage characteristics for baby
dinosaurs and their nesting environments. The children practiced parenting instincts and
camouflage concepts outdoors in the natural environment while protecting “dinosaur eggs” they
had made. Children also experimented with large samples of cloth to cover themselves
outdoors in order to evaluate the use of colors and patterns while hiding from a single predator
or group of predators.
After a variety of activities/investigations, my students were given a recording sheet to draw two
examples of camouflage. The first box asked for a drawing to show what a good camouflage
situation was for a baby dinosaur. The second box asked for a drawing to show what a poor
camouflage situation was for a baby dinosaur. The children were also asked to write a thought
or connection they had made on the back of their recording sheet.
Interdisciplinary Links and Extensions
Science
I used this task with our study of dinosaurs, but it can be adapted easily to any animal study. A
task extension might include cooperative groups creating murals showing the best camouflage
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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for their baby dinosaurs and nest. Use the natural environment to “hide” camouflaged
watercolor, nine-inch-high baby dinosaurs for students acting as predators to find, perhaps
timing how long it takes them.
Construct dioramas to practice camouflage techniques with clay model dinosaurs, or purchase
inexpensive bags of plastic dinosaurs for creating scenes. Integrate a study of dinosaurs’
survival adaptations (skeletons, muscles, eye placement, speed, teeth, nesting sites) and
others that apply to wildlife of today.
Social Studies
Use Digging Up Dinosaurs for a unit on careers that involve the study of dinosaurs. Practice the
investigative and artistic techniques of Vermont naturalist Jim Arnosky from Secrets of a Wildlife
Watcher or I See Animals Hiding. Have the children work in partners or cooperative groups to
research (on the Internet) particular states in the U.S. that have had dinosaur digs. Visit a local
museum or museum Web site.
Literary Arts
Engage children in writing descriptive stories using a variety of color words and their five
senses about where their baby dinosaurs are hiding (for example: "My baby Triceratops is
shaking with fear under the pale green ferns"). After being modeled, guide the writing of haiku
poetry to describe the baby dinosaur in its camouflage environment. Jack Prelutsky has written
a collection of dinosaur poems, called Tyrannosaurus Was a Beast, that could be used as a
model for first graders to start their own class book. Use Jim Arnosky’s A Kettle of Hawks to
integrate present-day wildlife into descriptions of different dinosaur habits. Jim Murphy’s
Dinosaur for a Day is a beautifully illustrated story, using camouflage and survival skills about a
family of Hypsilophodons. Use An Alphabet of Dinosaurs, by Peter Dodson, for partners to write
their own alphabet book about dinosaurs.
Music/Movement
Help the children write class songs about color and camouflage to tunes of familiar songs or
rhymes. Ask the music teacher to help integrate a variety of musical instruments, which could
represent the movements and sounds of different types of baby animals, weather conditions or
feelings like hunger, fear and excitement. Whenever studying animals, be careful NOT to
project human feelings and qualities onto animals. Most of what animals do is instinctual and/or
territorial for survival.
Mathematics
Integrate measurement skills for the different strides that dinosaurs would have, or compare
sizes of different dinosaurs in the gym or outside or by graphing sizes. Construct dinosaur
skeleton shapes with Popsicle sticks and toothpicks to represent different sizes of bones.
A group problem-solving task could be desiged. (For example: In the herd of Protoceratops,
there are 6 females. Each female will lay 6 to 8 eggs in a nest. How many eggs might be in
each female’s nest? Solve the problem 2 or 3 ways.)
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Practice skills involving directions with ordinal numbers and colors with a bucket of plastic
colored dinosaurs. (An example might be: "Put the blue dinosaur in the second place in line.")
The concepts of more and less can also be added to the previous activity by using colors. Sort
plastic dinosaurs or pictures of dinosaurs while looking for features, habits, size, time, period,
etc.
Teaching Tips and Guiding Questions
Throughout this unit on camouflage, it is important to engage children with questions that guide
their thinking and lead them to the big ideas. Quality inquiry questions help children build
understanding while they explore, manipulate and record their information. Also, remember that
all of our theories about dinosaurs are based on fossils, skeletal remains and knowledge of
present-day animals.
Guiding questions to ask students might include:
• Why did dinosaurs and/or who do wildlife today use camouflage for their nests or babies?
• What colors are the baby dinosaurs you are investigating? How do the colors of their
surroundings help?
• What mammals today use camouflage? What reptiles? amphibians? insects? How do they
blend into their surroundings?
• What colors would you want to be if you were a baby dinosaur, and where would you hide
for safety when your parents are out hunting for food?
• If you have bright colors on your body, what other survival features would you want to
have?
• How are your colors or adaptations (beak shape, talons, webbed feet, etc.) related to your
size or coloring?
• If I were to look only at your skeleton (including teeth), what clues would I get about your
habits, adaptations or food source?
• Do only dinosaurs that are prey use camouflage? How does this compare to today’s
reptiles, birds or mammals?
• Why do scientists think that some dinosaurs traveled in herds? How does this compare to
some species today?
Concepts to be Assessed
(Unifying concepts/big ideas and science concepts to be assessed using the Science
Exemplars Rubric under the criterion: Science Concepts and Related Content)
Life Science – Structure and Function; Regulation and Behavior; Evolution, Diversity and
Adaptations: Students identify the characteristics of organisms (needs, structures, senses,
behaviors). Students categorize living organisms as plant eaters or meat eaters and describe
examples of interdependence (food chains and life cycles).
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Earth’s History – Earth and Space Science: Students identify and record evidence of change
over time (fossilization). Students identify and record patterns and forces that shape the earth
(geological).
Mathematics: Students use precise measurements and diagrams. Students collect, organize
and analyze data and use graphs, tables and representations appropriately.
Skills to be Developed
(Science process skills to be assessed using the Science Exemplars Rubric under the criteria:
Scientific Procedures and Reasoning Strategies, and Scientific Communication Using Data)
Scientific Method: Observing, predicting, hypothesizing, collecting/recording data,
manipulation of tools, drawing conclusions, communicating findings and raising new questions.
Other Science Standards and Concepts Addressed
Scientific Theory: Students look for evidence that explains why things happen and modify
explanations when new observations are made.
Life Science – Structure and Function; Regulation and Behavior; Evolution, Diversity and
Adaptations: Students describe and group animals by what they eat and where they live.
Students understand that living things are found almost everywhere in the world and are
interdependent and that resource demands can limit the growth of populations in specific
ecosystems.
Earth Science – Earth Structure and System; Solar System: Students demonstrate
understanding of the earth and its environment, the solar system and the universe in terms of
the systems that characterize them and the forces that affect and shape them over time.
Communication: Students use verbal and nonverbal skills to express themselves effectively.
Mathematics: Students use reasoning and create a variety of strategies and approaches to
solve problems. Students apply mathematics to solve scientific and technological problems.
Suggested Materials
I use a collection of bright fabrics, solid earth colors and patterned materials to cover a first
grader when simulating protective coloration. (Ask parents, a local fabric shop and your art
teacher for donations.) A collection of inexpensive bags of dinosaurs (found in dollar stores) is
useful for sorting attributes, putting in dioramas or pushing into clay to make fossils. Butcher
paper or 18 inches x 24 inches poster board can be used for murals.
Ask children to collect and bring in small twigs, pebbles, leaves, ferns, pine branches, etc., for
use in their real-life camouflage murals or dioramas. Have measuring tapes and chalk on hand
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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for partners to measure (and mark on pavement) life-size dinosaurs, foot strides, and so on.
Have one or two boxes of Popsicle sticks or wide craft sticks to measure on the floor or use for
dinosaur skeletons. Have two to four boxes of toothpicks on hand to make the smaller bones of
the skeletons. Purchase a collection of plastic dinosaurs in four colors for several mathematical
connections.
A recording sheet and drawing materials are all that is needed for this assessment task.
Possible Solutions
Each student should complete two drawings, with a written sentence for each, that reflect
appropriate scientific reasoning about the concept of camouflage. The top drawing should
represent a good camouflage example for the baby dinosaur(s), and the bottom drawing should
represent a poor camouflage example for the baby dinosaur(s). The written description should
match each drawing and reflect appropriate scientific thinking. (Note: Many of my students
dictated their explanations.)
Task-Specific Assessment Notes
Novice
This student’s drawing is not complete and is lacking in appropriate details. The written ideas
(e.g., of the babies hiding under their eggs) does not reflect the concept of camouflage or
scientific reasoning. The second drawing for poor camouflage does reflect the predator/prey
relationship for many dinosaurs. The student demonstrates a limited understanding of the
scientific task.
Apprentice
This student shows a limited understanding of camouflage. S/he attempts to show some
reasoning, but that reasoning is still unclear in the representation. The good camouflage,
described as leaves for the Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus) babies, would not be adequate for their
height. The use of caves would be good camouflage, rather than poor, depending on the size of
the cave and stage of the babies. Both groups are not aggressive unless the Stegosaurus
family has young ones in the cave.
Note: This is where more questioning is important for a clear understanding of the student’s
drawing.
Practitioner
This student demonstrates evidence of understanding through various details in camouflaging
and labeling the baby longnecks with a variety of plants. The second drawing of poor
camouflage is clearly shows the baby dinosaurs out in the opening. The student makes some
scientific connections (e.g., “The baby longnecks got found because their mom was eating in
the valley”), indicating a clearer understanding of cause-effect reasoning.
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Expert
This student’s first drawing (about good camouflage) reflects detailed thinking and reasoning by
showing camouflage for the baby dinosaurs and including the nests with an appropriate number
of eggs. The second drawing of poor camouflage is partnered with a clear statement of what is
missing for camouflage for this baby dinosaur. This student completes the task with accurate
representation, scientific thinking and communication.
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Novice
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Novice
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Apprentice
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Apprentice
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Practitioner
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Practitioner
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Expert
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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Expert
What Is Good/Poor Camouflage (for a Baby Dinosaur)?
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