Prehistoric Educational Colouring Posters

Product Description: The Prehistoric Colouring Posters consists of four A3 size colouring sheets, six colouring pencils and a dinosaur factsheet. The colouring posters include a single image of tyrannosaurus rex, a dinosaur, reptile and birds poster consisting of four images, a prehistoric timeline poster consisting of four images, and an early man poster depicting a mammoth hunt. The factsheet explains what dinosaurs are, when they lived, prehistoric life and there is a crossword to complete. There is a colourful header card that has pictures showing how the posters could be coloured in and information on trilobites and how fossils are formed.

Information: The dinosaurs were among the most successful animals ever to live on the Earth. Their reign lasted over 150 million years and then the disappeared in the most mysterious extinction ever. Dinosaurs only lived on land. Many were gigantic and some were tiny just the size of a chicken. There were dinosaurs who were fierce sharp-toothed meat eaters and others who just ate plants. Dinosaurs were reptiles. They had scaley skin and laid eggs. If birds evolved from dinosaurs, then their descendants are still alive today. One of the oldest known prehistoric birds was the Archeopteryx, which had teeth, feathers and three claws on each wing.

The age of the dinosaurs is known as the Mesozoic era. This stretched from 248 million years ago to 65 million years ago. It is divided into three separate time spans. The Triassic Period lasted from 248 to 206 million years ago. At this time the continents were joined together into one supercontinent called Pangaea. The Triassic world saw the first small dinosaurs like the meat-eating Herrerasaurus. The Jurassic Period lasted from 206 to 144 million years ago. Pangea had drifted apart forming two continents where different dinosaurs evolved. Giant Sauropods like Diplodocus roamed in huge conifer forests while the bone plated Stegosaurus are low growing plants. Preying on the herbivores were meat eaters like Allosaurus. They belonged to a group of dinosaurs called the Therapods, who were the killers of the dinosaur world. The Crustaceous Period lasted from 144 to 65 million years ago. The continents continued to drift apart and the Earth looked similar to as it does today. During this time there were a great variety of dinosaurs including horned plant eaters like Triceratops and huge carnivorous dinosaurs (meat eaters) like Tyrannosaurus Rex.

About 3 million years ago, the earth was populated by deer, giraffes, hyenas, cattle, sheep, goats, antelope, gazelles, horses, elephants, rhinoceroses, camels, gorund squirrels, beavers, cave lions, ants, termites, porpoises, whales, dogs with huge teeth, and sabre-toothed tigers! Giant sharks about 42 feet long, were plentiful. There were all kinds of birds, plants and fish, similar to those found today.

Early Man and the higher primates, including apes first appeared around 3 million years ago. There was a difference between man and apes. Human-like hominids could stand upright. Apes could not. Their hands were different, too. Ape hands were made for climbing and clinging. Early man’s hands were jointed differently, which allowed them to not only use tools, but to make tools. No one knows if these very early human-like people actually made tools, but remains of polished bones have been found in South Africa, which suggests they might have made simple digging tools from bone! Their diet was mostly vegetarian, along with some meat, probably obtained by scavenging.