SCIENCE & NATURE Useful Tails Materials Pictures of a possum, horse, lizard, rattlesnake, peacock, fish, bird, and beaver What to do 1. Display the animal pictures so the children can see them. 2. Say the following sentences. Ask the children to guess the animal by the usefulness of its tail. I use my tail for hanging upside down. (possum) I use my tail as a fly swatter. (horse) When my tail breaks off, I grow a new one. (lizard) I shake my noisy tail when I am about to strike. (rattlesnake) My tail opens like a beautiful fan. (peacock) I use my tail as a propeller. I cannot swim without it. (fish) I can’t fly without my tail. (bird) I use my powerful tail for building. (beaver) More to do Ask the children if they can name other animals that have tails. Ask them how these animals’Downloaded tails might by [email protected] useful. from Games: Cut out the tailsProFilePlanner.com of each of the animals. Encourage the children to pin the tails on the pictures (like “Pin the Tail on the Donkey”). Dotti Enderle, Richmond, TX Dino Dig Materials Plastic or rubber dinosaurs or bones Sand Wide-tip, medium-sized paintbrushes Plastic sand shovels Small plastic buckets Clipboards Paper Pencil or pens 508 The GIANT Encyclopedia of Preschool Activities for Four-Year-Olds Downloaded by [email protected] from ProFilePlanner.com SCIENCE & NATURE What to do 1. Beforehand, hide plastic or rubber dinosaurs or bones in the sand. 2. Give each child a paintbrush, shovel, and bucket. 3. Encourage the children to uncover the items in the sand. The children can place their archeological finds in the bucket after they dig them up and brush them off. 4. Give each child a clipboard with a piece of paper. Encourage the children to draw a picture or write about what they found. 5. Replace the items in the sand and encourage another child to be a “paleon- tologist.” More to do Make fossils of the dinosaurs or bones using plaster of Paris or clay. Place the fossils in the sand after they have hardened. Encourage the children to uncover them and guess what they might have found. Games: Musical Dinosaur Step Game: Play this game just like musical chairs. The only difference is that instead of using chairs, the children will follow cutout dinosaur footprint tracks. Ask the “winner” to name what kind of dinosaur she would like to be and why. Related books An Alphabet of DinosaursDownloadedby Peter by [email protected] Dodson from The Magic School Bus: In the TimeProFilePlanner.com of the Dinosaurs by Joanna Cole New Questions and Answers About Dinosaurs by Seymour Simon Tina R. Woehler, Oak Point, TX Names-O-Saurus Materials Nametags Paper Markers The GIANT Encyclopedia of Preschool Activities for Four-Year-Olds 509 Downloaded by [email protected] from ProFilePlanner.com.