DINOSAURS - STORIES, FOLKLORE and FACTS
(excerpts from posts)
(If you want to retell any of the stories listed below, be sure to obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain)

1) The closest I've ever come in folktale form was in Gail Robinson's Coyote the Trickster where Coyote fights a creature that definitely fits the possible description. Don't have easy access to it at the moment, but it's title should be fairly easy to recognize within that book. Coyote is fairly helpful to people in it as they're being decimated regularly by the beast. Coyote realizes it stays in its cave & only goes after people at night, so it probably can't see well in the daytime. Attacking in the daytime, Coyote eventually lures it into quicksand.

2) Funny dinosaur stories by very young children:
http://www.k12.nf.ca/stm/GRADE1/dinostories.html

3) Candlelight Stories (including many other stories as well)
Tyrannosaurus Rex: Bones to Stones poem by Katie Shoemaker
Alexandra and the Dinosaur story by Jerry Lavouge
http://www.candlelightstories.com/D001/morekids.asp

4) A Dinosaur website:
http://www.dinosaur.org/frontpage.html

5) Dinosaur dating joke:
http://www.vnn.vn/vnn4/funny_story/stories/03_t5.htm

6) Another dinosaur website:
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/favorite/

7) Dinosaur Tales by kids of various age groups:
http://www.dinosaurtales.com/cgi-local/Ultimate.cgi?action=intro

8) Native American Dinosaur Stories and Legends
http://www.y-indianguides.com/pfm_st_dinosaurs.html

9) Hear the Dinosaur: sound effects (also short stories about dinosaurs by kids)
http://www.marshall-es.marshall.k12.tn.us/jobe/Read-Write/stories/title.html

10) Dinosaur stories:
http://www.alittlehistory.com/Drumheller/DinoStories/

11) Stories About Dinosaurs, a bibliography prepared by the Vernon Area Public Library
http://www.vernon-area.lib.il.us/kids/Bibliographies/dinosaurs.htm

12) List of stories about dinosaurs and dragons (you can probably get them at your public library)
http://www.foxtales.com/dinos.htm

13) Dinosaur story as started by the BBC and finished by various people:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dinosaurs/dig_deeper/send_story_7.shtml

14) Dinosaur stories are always difficult for 3-5 yr olds. But one thing I did was buy an Easter basket and fill it with large plastic eggs. Inside each egg was a different dinosaur. You can either find small cartoon pics to run off on colored paper or find those small dinosaur plastic miniatures. Then you can make up your own story. Ex. One day I went outside to find Easter Eggs. I went all over the yard (look in many places) Finally I came home to open my eggs to make egg salad sandwiches. Was I ever surprised to find...(pop open an egg) (Most kids will already know what kind of dinosaur pops out - let them answer) So, I opened another egg...(etc)

15) How about the stubborn turnip theme, but have a dinosaur stuck in the muck and each smaller dinosaur has to try to pu-u-ulll him out and call to the next smaller dinosaur to help. THen when the biggest dinosaur gets pulled out, they all have a pot luck dinner. Well, I've never told it, but I used the same idea with simians, apes.

16) The way I tackled a similar challenge was to go with my strengths, which are historical stories. So I told the story of some great Australian historical characters in terms of Aussies (Gondwana) dinosaurs eg the famous bushranging dinosaur Neddy Kellysaurus and the flying reptile Capteranadon Kingsford Smith. This was quite successful for family groups because each generation was an expert on one aspect and so we went from the known to the unknown. Perhaps you could try something similar with any fairy tale or history or basically any story you know has legs.

17) If you still have large Easter Eggs left over from the holidays, fill them either wiith plastic mini-dino's or run-off simple pictures of dinosaurs. Just do the most popular ones - Bronto, Stega, PTera, and of course T-Rex. Make up simple rhymes or write out a first person description ( "I like to eat the leaves off the top of trees with my long neck, who am I?") that describe the dinosuar and let the kids guess who's inside. There is a book (fiction) on a family that finds dino eggs. It's not a big area for telling stories. There's Amy and the Dinosaur, but I never like it for telling.

18) Dinosaur stories? That's a tough one. I don't remember where I first learned this song, but it has always been a hit when everyone helps sing it and act it out. The tune is "The wheels on the bus" which almost every kid in the US knows.
The pteranodon's wings go flap, flap flap, (make flying motions with arms)
Flap, flap, flap,
Flap, flap, flap.
The pteranodon's wings go flap, flap flap,
Down in the swamp. (I start with my hands far apart and clap hard on the last word)
The stegosaurus tail goes spike, spike, spike (you can figure out what to do here)
Spike, spike, spike,
Spike, spike, spike.
The stegosaurus tail goes spike, spike, spike
Down in the swamp.
The tyrannosaurus rex goes Grr-grrr-grrr,
Grr-grrr-grrr,
Grr-grrr-grrr,
The tyrannosaurus rex goes Grr-grrr-grrr,
Down in the swamp.
And so forth using other familiar dinosaurs.

I have also done variations of the big gigantic turnip, only it's the farmer and the animals pulling out a large dinosaur bone which the dog then runs off with to chew on. Another successful story comes from the book Joining In: An Anthology of Audience Participation Stories and How to Tell Them. Ruth Stotter calls her story "Aga-boog-a-way-x-nay-snaze-nay" and it's about a boy reeling in a magic hat that makes him do something he's always wanted to do. With the dearth of dinosaur stories, I've sometimes changed the story to the boy digging up a dinosaur bone. Everyone who handles the bone ends up doing a wildly outrageous feat that they've always had a secret yearning for. I can promise that the story elicits some unusual ideas from the kids as to what they think their parents would do "for fun". Parents are a pretty stodgy group, according to kids. Go shopping for a whole day, eat an entire batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, sleep in, read a book, do eat out in a fancy restaurant. The most unusual was a response of hang-gliding.

19) If you're interested in buying T-shirts with dinosaurs on them, go to:
http://www.animalshirts.net/shirts/dinosaur.htm
This is a large collection of shirts imaginatively printed and arranged on a variety of shirts. Unique and beautiful.

20) I just came across this wonderful story about the dino bones at Badlands; it's in the book American Indian Myths and Legends (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library), and the title is Wakinyan Tanka, the great Thunderbird.
Macsek 9/17/07
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(This web page updated 1/19/05; 9/24/07)