A young girl dreams of having her own pet. She wonders what animal would be best for her. Of the three most common pets, she likes dogs, has a cat, and a fish is simply too wet! The girl, still in pajamas, bounces on her bed—where a toy green dinosaur sits—and finally decides, she wants “a pet much bigger, more the size of, well, A HOUSE!” Dinosaurs can come in all shapes and sizes. When you are teaching your kids about them, some of the dinosaurs may appear adorable to your kids. With this If I Had a Pet Dinosaur Writing activity, you can have your kids channel those sentiments into imagining what their dinosaur pet would be like. Barrow’s illustrations are equally charming and imaginative. While not stated, the young girl uses her cat as a point of reference. Just as her kitty needs to eat, drink, and have shelter, so does a huge, green dinosaur. The cat’s door-flap is small enough for a cat to slip in and out of the house. A dinosaur will need a much, much, much larger flap—and door. Barrow envisions . . . But you should care what I think about the illustrations: They are delightful! Except for when they aren't. This book and other dinosaur stories stimulated lots of play. He enjoyed hiding dinosaurs in the garden, making a mini dinosaur world in a plastic tray and making a paper plate dinosaur. He began making connections to other stories too, in particular, We’re Going on a Bearhunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury and How to be a Lion by Ed Vere, a story about a gentle lion. Noah said: ‘We’re going on a dinosaur hunt, the dinosaur might roar, the lion will teach it to be gentle.’ Things to make and do Play the story

Her choice of dinosaur? A brontosaurus! Yep, this girl wants a dinosaur/pet as big as a house! Which made it even funnier that it still fitted in the living room on the couch while she was thinking about it. Maybe that house is like the tents in Harry Potter. Dimensions? What is that? On your second and third readings of the story you can point out the rhyming words as you come across them e.g. “Listen. ‘park’ sounds like ‘bark’. ‘Park’ and ‘bark’ rhyme. The end of the words sound the same”. So. Darn. Cute. As regular readers know, JJ is a fan of dinosaurs – you may have even noticed her loyal reading buddy, Mr. Dinosaur. And from the first appearance of the sweet-faced, bright-green dino of the books, she was delighted. It’s a fun twist on the familiar “unusual pet” theme, with a few details that make it stand out. The bouncy rhyming text is jaunty and fun to read aloud; the simple, cheerful illustrations are cute and colorful, and filled with clever little details for sharper-eyed readers (see if you can find the fun nod to the Harry Potter universe); and it features a multi-racial cast, including a protagonist of color and her family. One content warning: there is an entire spread devoted to the question of how to clean dino-sized droppings with an unsubtle depiction of such (think the poop emoji with no face). But if that doesn’t bother you, you’re in store for a cheery read. The length was fine, JJ AND Mr. Dinosaur loved it, and it’s definitely Baby Bookworm approved!

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Inspire your kids’ creative thinking skills with this If I Had a Pet Bunny Writing Activity for K-2nd Grade. This activity asks your kids the hypothetical question, “If you had a bunny, what would you do?” There is enough space provided in the sheet for your kids to write down how they would take care of this bunny. There is also a portion for them to draw what their bunny would look like. Note to illustrator: Asian kids aren't actually yellow. You've got a bunch of other skin colors in here so I know you can mix pigments. Also, only the yellow children have eyes that are slanted lines instead of the round dots sported by all the other people in the story. Illustrator, please do better.

It's a rhyming story and those are rarely appealing to me (this one is no different) because they always seem somewhat forced (unless it's Dr. Seuss) and silly but kids love rhymes and they'll love this one so who cares what I think about the text? No one.That goes triple for you, Publisher. You have staff who are supposed to keep you from looking like an ass yet you still look like an ass. When your child is consistently able to recognise the rhyming words in the story you can then encourage him or her to come up with a word. You can say “Can you think of another word that rhymes with ‘school’ and ‘cool’?”.

This Creative Writing Prompts worksheet is an excellent resource to use to get your kids to practice their writing skills and develop their creative thinking skills. There are four different scenarios included in this resource. Each one has an image of an item, such as a banana or a train, and a prompt about the image. Your kids can answer the prompt however they wish in the space provided. Hello, friends! Our book today is If I Had A Dinosaur by Alex Barrow & Gabby Dawnay, an absolutely adorable tale of a little girl’s dream pet.

We see the little girl tell us all about her new pet, what she will do with it (like learning it the alphabet), how she would feed it/care for it, about his enormous.... (I just loved the look on the cat's face when that landed next to it), and many more other fun things.

Encourage your child to think of other animals that would not be suitable as pets. Discuss the reasons they would not make good pets. This will help to develop their verbal reasoning skills. All in all, a delightful book about imagination, about pets and dinosaurs, about dreams! I would recommend it. Let me point out the kid in question. If you didn't look at the cover art, you'd probably think it was some little white boy, based on my description. This little kid also wants a dinosaur after going through a list of other pets that just weren't good enough. Cats, nah. Dogs? Nah. Hamsters? Nah.

As you read it again children pause so that children can complete the rhyming pair, say the name of the animal and follow the words as they go round the dinosaur’s tail with a finger. Talk about the story Who doesn't want a dinosaur as a pet? I know I wanted one when I was a kid, and as the age I am now? Still want one! :P