Dinosaur Teeth! I am delighted to be writing the first article in our new book series The Magic Tree House. We read ‘Dinosaurs Before Dark’ and we really enjoyed the great storyline based in the time of the dinosaurs!

After reading the book we decided to go to a museum to learn more about dinosaurs and that got us thinking about how big (and small) the dinosaurs were.

It was quite difficult to imagine this unless we had the actual fossils in front of us. Once we got home we decided that the best way to find out more about the dinosaurs was to look at the size and type of teeth they had.

This led to our main activity ‘How Big Are My Dinosaur Teeth?’

What You Need to Measure Your Dinosaur Teeth!

Tape Measure or Ruler

Dinosaur Pictures or Tooth Size

Pencil and Paper to record your measurements

How To Measure Your Dinosaur Teeth

First we looked researched online about different sizes of teeth. The list below shows a few facts about the sizes and types of different teeth.

  • T-Rex Large Tooth Size: 6 inches or 15cms (12 inches or 30.5 cms including the root)
  • Spinosaurus: 1-3 inches or 2.5-7.5 cms (8-10 inches or 20-25 cms including the root)
  • Allosaurus: 1-2 inches or 2.5-5 cms
  • Edmontosaurus: 1/2 inch or 1cm
  • Carcharodontosaurus: 8 inches or 20cms
  • Velociraptor: 1/2 inch or 1 cm

Then we measured our own teeth! These we about the same size as a velociraptor or an Edmontosaurus!

Finally we found out how much bigger or smaller our teeth were in comparison to the different teeth!

We also found out that the type of teeth depended on what the dinosaur ate and also what it used its teeth for.

Most herbivores had smaller front teeth but much larger teeth at the back (molars) and these were for grinding up vegetable matter such as leaves or roots.

Most carnivores had large, sharp front or side teeth (incisors and canines) for stabbing, killing and slicing their prey.

Some dinosaurs even developed special teeth to help them defend themselves or to fight with rivals over territory and mates.

Other Activities

With the information we had gathered we decided that we could:

Compare teeth size with modern day animals teeth

Create a Venn diagram

Make a flow chart to show how size and shape of teeth relate to which type of dinosaur!

Helen

I'm always on the go and love that everyday is an adventure!

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