Talk About It: How Do We Know What Dinosaurs Looked Like?

The big idea: Scientists use clues, like bones and footprints, to figure out what dinosaurs looked like.

No person ever saw a living dinosaur. So how do we know what they looked like? Scientists called paleontologists act like detectives. Bones show a dinosaur's shape and size. Fossil footprints show how it walked, and even how tall it was. Rare skin prints show scales, and some fossils even show feathers! Color is the hardest part. Bones don't keep color, so most dinosaur colors in books are good guesses.

Questions to ask

• "If you only saw a dinosaur's bones, what could you tell about it?"

• "What do footprints tell us? Were they big or small? Did it walk on two legs or four?"

• "What color do YOU think this dinosaur was? Why?"

• "Did you know some dinosaurs had feathers?"

Show it in one minute

Step in a little water and make wet footprints on the sidewalk or a towel. "Look, these are clues! Can you tell who made them?" Then compare your footprint to your child's: big feet, big person.

Keep it going

Do the Finish the Dinosaur worksheet together: look at the bones, then draw what you think the living dinosaur looked like. There's no wrong color!

Want to learn more?

• Dinosaur Bones: Learning from Fossils, from the American Museum of Natural History

• Drawing Dinos, from AMNH OLogy

• Paleontology for Kids, from AMNH OLogy

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Find the books and supplies from this week in one place. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

• Today's book: How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodbye? by Jane Yolen

• Goes with this lesson: Jumbo toy dinosaurs

• Shop everything for Week 5: Dinosaurs

• Starter supplies: the basics we use most weeks

• See every week in our Amazon storefront

More for this week: see all our Dinosaur activities, Letter E activities and Number 5 activities.