Children's Poetry
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Poetry Break # 18

Poetry Break # 18: A Poem Relevant to Science

 

Introduction: Ask students to give you some facts about dinosaurs and dinosaur bones. Make a list on the board.

 

Dinosaur Bone

 

Dinosaur bone

alone, alone,

keeping a secret

old as stone

 

deep in the mud

asleep in the mud

tell me, tell me,

dinosaur bone.

 

What was the world

when the seas were new

and ferns unfurled

and strange winds blew?

 

Were the mountains fire?

Were the rivers ice?

Was it mud and mire?

Was it paradise?

 

How did it smell,

your earth, your sky?

How did you live?

How did you die?

 

How long have you lain

alone, alone?

Tell me, tell me,

dinosaur bone.

 

Poem by Alice Schertle. Taken from Spectacular Science: A Book of Poems by Lee Bennett Hopkins, editor.  Illustrated by Virginia Halstead. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999, p. 23. ISBN: 0689812833.

 

 

Extension: a) After reading the poem once, divide the class into three groups. Have each group read two consecutive stanzas. b) Divide the class into four teams to do research.  Ask each team to research one topic and to report back to the class.  Possible topics include the following:  What is the most common scientific thinking about how dinosaurs died?  Tell the story of at least one research team that found dinosaur bones. What do scientists think the earth was like when dinosaurs lived (the climate, the plants, the animals)?  What are the most recent dinosaur discoveries?

 

 

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