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From Bones to Beast: How to Build a Dinosaur Skeleton
by Jessica Feder-Birnbaum
For the grandchild who's jonesing for all things prehistoric
Paleontologists are the ultimate puzzlers. To build a dinosaur skeleton, these researchers spend hours sorting through fossilized dinosaur bones to figure out how the bones fit together.
How about building a dinosaur skeleton with your grandchild before your next museum excursion or library trip? Sound crazy? Not according to New York City based-grandmother and educator Alice Krieger, a founder and associate executive director of LEAP (Learning through an Expanded Arts Program).
“This is a wonderful project for kids and grandparents to do together. It introduces dinosaurs in a fun and engaging way. It also offers time to communicate, and improve fine motor skills,” says Krieger, grandma of two granddaughters.
Intrigued? Let’s get started.
Materials Needed:
• Bones from beef, lamb, and poultry. Use leftovers or get them from the butcher. Some butchers will give bones away; otherwise they’re usually less than $1 per pound. You’ll need three pounds of meat bones (about 20 pieces) and two pounds of poultry bones (about 40 pieces).
• Strong craft glue
• Bleach
• Water
• Lacquer, spray or brush-on
• One large sheet of brown or white paper, at least 24” x 36”, which can be found at any art supply, office supply, or hardware store
• Books with dinosaur skeleton illustrations such as: Aliki’s Dinosaur Bones (HarperCollins, 1990), Byron Barton’s Bones, Bones, Dinosaur Bones (HarperCollins, 1990), or John R. Horner and James Gorman’s Digging Dinosaurs (Workman Publishing, 1988).
If the books aren't available, download dinosaur skeleton pictures from the following websites: www.enchantedlearning.com, www.dinosaur.org, and www.amnh.org.
Directions:
1. When reading one of the suggested books or visiting a website, discuss paleontology and how fossils reveal facts about dinosaurs such as species and age. Mention the other workers who help the paleontologist, like the bone diggers, draftspeople, and other scientists. If all the grandchildren are together, give everyone a job: cleaning bones, discovering facts, sorting the bones by shape. Note the clues your set of bones reveal. Small, pointy bones may be shards of sharp teeth that belong to a carnivore like Tyrannosaurus rex. A triangular-shaped bone might be a Triceratops horn. A Triceratops, which is an herbivore, has flat teeth and needs outer body protection.
2. Copy a picture of a dinosaur skeleton onto a large sheet of paper. Do a hand-based rendering in pencil, then trace over the form with a felt-tip marker or have an image enlarged at a copy shop.
3. Tape the paper to the floor or large work surface.
4. Prepare the bones by submerging them in a large pot filled with a mixture of three cups of bleach to one gallon of water. Boil the bones for 30 to 60 minutes, or until they are stripped of all flesh and gristle.
5. Rinse the bones in water and spread them out on paper towels and allow them to air-dry thoroughly.
6. When the bones are dry, figure out which ones match the various sections of a skeleton, such as ribcage, toes, or joints. Note the bones’ shapes. Chicken bones will be thin and narrow. Beef and lamb bones will be circular, triangular, cylindrical, and square. Long bones from turkey legs are great for necks. A round shank would work for the skull.
7. When bone placement has been decided, glue the bones in place. Allow several hours of drying time.
8. Once dry, lacquer the skeleton to preserve it; make sure the area is well-ventilated.
Display at home, school, or the local library and tell everyone about your grandchild, the paleontologist!
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16 Answers
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BIG TIME! Can't get enuf of dem bones!
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Not really.
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They scare my grandchild!
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| Zack, (4), loves dinosaurs. (Last year when we visited the zoo he was disappointed not to see any!) We've made several dinosaur skeletons from wooden and paperboard kits, but using real bones is a fun idea! We watched one of Alton Brown's episodes of "Good Eats" on Food Network where he demonstrated how similar chicken and dinosaur skeletal structure is, so that would seem like a good place to start?
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