Activity: Make a Dinosaur Time Line

Many of my books, such as Giant Sea Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age, Pterosaurs: Flying Reptiles of the Dinosaur Age and Dinosaurs With Feathers, are about dinosaurs or animals that lived in the Dinosaur Age (the Mesozoic Era.)  Trying to grasp the huge span of time that these animals were alive--225 to 65 million years ago--and the time that has elapsed since they became extinct is difficult.  One way to appreciate that span of time is to  make a time line of the history of the earth and show when dinosaurs, pterosaurs and giant sea reptiles lived. (Use a roll of shelf paper or draw the time line with chalk on the playground. If one inch equals a million years you will need about 20 feet to go back to the beginning of dinosaurs.)

Would you like to have a pet dinosaur?
Write a story about what you would do if you had a dinosaur, pterosaur, or giant sea reptile as a pet. Where would you keep it? What would it eat?  Do you think you could teach it to do tricks?