A Visit to the Mesozoic

 Billy was trying to study, when Mandy found him.

"What are you working on, Billy?" Mandy asked.
"I have a test tomorrow," Billy replied, "and I'm trying to learn all these names of dinosaurs (DYE-no-sors). It's really hard!"

Mandy thought Billy looked discouraged. "I have an idea," she said. "Names are hard to learn if you can't see who they are in your head. Let's get the toy dinosaurs out of the toy box and see if we can name them."
Billy closed the book. "That sounds like a good idea," he said.

The two dolls opened the toy box and took out all the dinosaurs. They had all of the ones Billy needed to know. Then they stood on the box and worked together to put all the toy dinosaurs on the windowsill. 

"First," Mandy said, "let me give you a name of a dinosaur and see if you can pick out the right one."

"OK," Billy said. "Let's do it! This is fun. It's like a game."
"The first one is Velociraptor (va-law-sih-RAP-ter)," Mandy said. "Which one is that?"
Billy thought for a few seconds. "I think maybe this one," he said, picking up one of the dinosaurs.

"Very good," Mandy agreed. Now you say his name.
"Velociraptor," Billy said. 
"Good," Mandy agreed. Then she asked him to put the Velociraptor down on the toy box. "Now show me the Styracosaurus (stih-RAK-a-SOR-us)," she said.

Billy had to think again for a bit. "That's the one that looks like the Triceratops (try-SEHR-a-tops), only he has just one horn instead of three," he said, looking at the toy dinosaurs. "It must be this one," he said finally.

"Tell me his name," Mandy said.
"Styracosaurus!" Billy exclaimed. He was beginning to feel better about what he knew.
Then Mandy asked him to show her the Ankylosaurus (ang-kel-o-SORE-us). Billy immediately picked up the toy dinosaur that had rows of spikes down its back.

"What is this one called?" Mandy asked.
"Ankylosaurus!" Billy cried. "I hope I can remember how it's spelled."

"We can work on that, too," Mandy told him.
The dolls did the same thing with all the toy dinosaurs. 

Mandy asked him to find each one, and Billy pointed to or picked up the one he thought she was asking for. If he got the name right, he put it down on the box. If he got it wrong, he left it on the windowsill to try again. He got most of them right the first time.
After a while, Billy counted how many he had named correctly. The number kept going up.

The dolls played the game until there was only one toy left. Mandy said that they should leave that one for now. That toy wasn't in Billy's lesson.
"Now," Mandy suggested, "let's do something a little harder. First we need to put them all back."
The two dolls put all the dinosaurs back on the windowsill.
"Now this time," Mandy explained, "I want you to point to each of the dinosaurs and tell me its name."

Billy pointed to the Ankylosaurus and said it's name correctly.

Mandy told him to take it off the windowsill.
Next he pointed to the Stegosaurus and said, "Stegosaurus."

Mandy nodded to show he was right. Billy took it off the windowsill.

Then he pointed to the Tyrannosaurus (tih-RAN-o-SORE-us) and said its name. When Mandy nodded, Billy took it and put it down on the toy box.

Then he pointed to the Triceratops. "This one is easy," he said. "It's a Triceratops. It's the one with a frill and three horns, and 'tri' means three."

"That's good, Billy!" Mandy exclaimed, as Billy took the Triceratops off the windowsill.

"I think this one is the Argentinosaurus (ar-jen-TEEN-uh-SORE-us)," Billy said, "but I'm not sure." 

"That's right," Mandy agreed. "Some scientists think it's the largest of all the dinosaurs, but it's hard to figure these things out when you have just their bones in rock." she added.

They continued with the game until there was only one toy left.
"Now how about this last one?" Mandy asked.
"I don't know this one," Billy said.

"It's a Dimetrodon (dye-MEH-tro-don)," explained Mandy. "It isn't in your lesson, and it actually doesn't belong in this group. Do you know why?"
Billy looked at the Dimetrodon and thought about it.

"The lesson is about dinosaurs. Maybe it isn't really a dinosaur," Billy said.
"You're right," agreed Mandy. "The Dimetrodon may have been an ancestor of mammals, so not like dinosaurs at all. Also, it came much earlier, during the Permian (PER-me-an) Period, which was in the Paleozoic (PALE-ee-oh-ZOH-ic) Era. Do you know when the dinosaurs lived?"

"Yes," said Billy. "In our lesson, we learned that the dinosaurs appeared during the Triassic (try-ASS-ik) Period, lived through the Jurassic (jer-ASS-ik) Period and then died out during the Cretaceous (kreh-TAY-shus) Period," Billy explained. "All of that time is called the Mesozoic (MEH-so-ZOH-ik) Era. It was millions and millions of years ago. A comet hit the earth and changed the climate. The dinosaurs couldn't live in a changed world."

"You know quite a lot," Mandy told him. "Now let's work on the spelling. Go get your notebook and pencil."
The dolls played a third game. This time, Mandy pointed to a dinosaur, and instead of saying its name, Billy wrote it down in his notebook. 

When they had finished, they checked the spelling of each one and Billy fixed his mistakes.

Then they played the game again. This time he got them all right!

"The rest of what is on the test is easy," Billy said. "It was just remembering the names that I had trouble with. I already knew when the dinosaurs lived and that they became extinct (ex-TINKT) at the end of the Mesozoic Era."

Mandy stood up and looked out the window. "They couldn't learn to live in their new world," she said. "We can learn a lot from the dinosaurs. If we don't learn lots of new things, we won't be ready to change when our lives change."

Billy nodded his agreement. He was beginning to feel good about the test tomorrow. He thanked Mandy for helping him. 
"I'm going to try to learn a lot, so I don't become extinct," Billy said to himself.


Note to parents of preschool children and early readers: There are some big words in this story. Even very young children can start learning the names of dinosaurs. It may not mean much to them the first time, but when they hear the names again later, they will begin to remember them. It's never too early to learn about dinosaurs! We didn't want to interrupt the story with the pronunciation of each dinosaur name. Dino Dictionary has a list of dinosaur names with pronunciation.

Cast--
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London

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