Spinosaurus
Preschool · 3–5A spinosaurus with the enormous sail on its back that makes it easy to tell apart from every other dinosaur. The sail is one huge shape sitting above a long body and a narrow crocodile-like snout, so the page has one big satisfying area and a handful of smaller ones. Children who have colored the T-Rex will enjoy spotting the differences between the two. Coloring a spinosaurus is a natural way to talk about dinosaurs that hunted fish, about living near water, and about what a big sail might have been for. Print it on A4 or US Letter, or color it online with tap-to-fill.
The sail on its back
The sail is the largest single region here and the most unusual thing in this whole category — a tall fin running along the spine, held up by long bony spines. It dominates the page, and it is the obvious place for a child to do something more ambitious than flat colour.
Because the sail is one big area crossed by the spine lines, it works well with stripes or a graduated colour, and it is a genuinely good place to try shading from dark at the base to light at the top.
Nobody is quite sure what it was for
Which is worth saying out loud. The best guesses are display, temperature control, or something to do with swimming — spinosaurus spent a lot of time in water and probably ate fish. Telling a child that scientists do not know is more valuable than making something up, and children handle uncertainty better than they are given credit for.
Frequently asked questions
- What was the sail for?
- Nobody is certain. Display, temperature regulation and swimming have all been proposed. It is a good chance to tell a child that scientists genuinely do not know everything yet.
- What age is this page for?
- Four to eight. The sail is a large area that rewards shading or stripes rather than flat colour.
