Spring is springing and what better way to celebrate World Habitat Awareness Month (April) and Earth Day (April 22) then to set out exploring the nature around you with Dinosaur Train’s Buddy and the Nature Trackers!
For some great ideas on how to explore nature, consider joining the Dinosaur Train Nature Tracker’s Club HERE, a FREE to join community of young children, their families and educators committed to learning about nature and doing good things for their environment.
Nature Trackers enjoy exploring and having adventures, respecting their environment, collecting things, tracking and observing plants and animals, and challenging themselves to get outside and make discoveries every day.
Download your FREE Dinosaur Train’s Nature Trackers Club Guide Book, available here and when you have completed all four activities, simply mail in the form provided in the book along with a self-addressed stamped envelope and receive an official Nature Trackers member token!
Nature Trackers enjoy exploring and having adventures, respecting their environment, collecting things, tracking and observing plants and animals, and challenging themselves to get outside and make discoveries every day.
Download your FREE Dinosaur Train’s Nature Trackers Club Guide Book, available here and when you have completed all four activities, simply mail in the form provided in the book along with a self-addressed stamped envelope and receive an official Nature Trackers member token!
Want other ideas to get into nature?
- Take the Dinosaur Train Geocaching Challenge! Geocaching is a modern day, worldwide treasure hunt whereby participants can both hide and seek containers called geocaches. Geocaching encourages children to explore their surroundings, use observational skills and have an adventure right in their own neighborhood. Geocaching is a family friendly outdoor adventure that blends technology, gaming and environmental discovery. Each geocache features one of the dinosaurs found on the online Dinosaur Train Field Guide and contains educational information related to that dinosaur. Click HERE to get started.
The Jim Henson Company and PBS KIDS are offering even more ideas for learning about the nature around you with a brand new online game, Backyard Theropods!
Learn all about today's dinosaurs - birds! Join Dr. Scott and help place interesting birds in their appropriate habitat. Use a bird caller to attract the bird, listen to the clue and then select where you think it lives. You will learn what different birds sound like, look like, what they are called, where they are likely to live, and about the ancestral connection between birds and dinosaurs. Once you learn a little more about birds you can get out in nature and look for birds in your own backyard!
NEW EPISODES
PBS KIDS kicks off Earth Month with “Explore the Outdoors” themed on-air programming, and will air “Dancing with Dinosaurs” the week April 8 – 12. Encore presentations of some of the most musical episodes of Dinosaur Train make for a week of dance-tastic adventures. Buddy, Shiny, Tiny and Don explore ponds, gardens, oceans and more. They sing and dance as they encourage kids to get outside, get into nature and make their own discoveries.
These episodes are:
PBS KIDS kicks off Earth Month with “Explore the Outdoors” themed on-air programming, and will air “Dancing with Dinosaurs” the week April 8 – 12. Encore presentations of some of the most musical episodes of Dinosaur Train make for a week of dance-tastic adventures. Buddy, Shiny, Tiny and Don explore ponds, gardens, oceans and more. They sing and dance as they encourage kids to get outside, get into nature and make their own discoveries.
These episodes are:
- That’s Not a Dinosaur: The kids visit the Big Pond to attend the Biome Block Party. While attempting to win the leaf-necklace contest, Keenan Chirostemotes claims the Pteranodon sibs can’t compete for the prize for “dinosaur” with the most leaves because they are not dinosaurs. This launches the kids into a song called “That’s Not a Dinosaur”, as all the non-dinosaurs sing their piece. In the end, the game rules are changed to include all creatures, even non-dinosaurs, in all the contests!
- Tiny’s Garden: The Nature Trackers go on a visit to the Big Pond, where Tiny hopes to see her favorite flowers.. The Conductor tells her that if the kids gather seeds at the pond, they can bring them home and plant a garden full of those same flowers at the family nest! The kids all get into it, gathering seeds and bringing them home, where they plant a garden, and meet its new inhabitants, including Sammy, a friendly slug, who explains that slugs, spiders, and butterflies all help to make a garden complete.
- Remember the Alamosaurus: The Pteranodon kids and Dad get the idea to travel around on the Dinosaur Train and meet some of the biggest dinosaurs. They sing “The Biggest Dinosaurs, before meeting the friendly and enormous, long-necked, plant eating sauropod.
- Sunrise Sunset: Dad takes the Pteranodon kids on an overnight camping trip where they watch both a sunrise and sunset. The kids learn more about nocturnal (night-active) animals, and Diurnal (day-active animals.
- Elmer Elasmosaurus: The Pteranodon family travels on the Dinosaur Train with the Aquacar to an underwater train station to transport Elmer Elasmosaurus back to his home in the ocean. At first Buddy is not enthusiastic about travelling underwater, but quickly becomes a convert when he sees the spectacular sights under the sea.
- Dinosaur Block Party: The Pteranodon family hosts a block party to introduce their new neighbors, the Lambeosaurus family, to all the other neighborhood creatures. The different species all join together to fly, dive, fish, race and especially, to rock the block!
- Junior Conductor Jamboree: Our kids ride the Dinosaur Train from one end of the line to the other, through all three Time Periods — from the Cretaceous, through the Jurassic, to the Triassic. All along the way, they pick up friends who join them for a Junior Conductor Jamboree!
- Troodon Train Day: The Pteranodon family rides to Troodon Town to celebrate Troodon Train Day, where the main event is a concert by King Cryolophosaurus, giving his first performance in years! When King comes down with some last-minute jitters, Buddy and Tiny help him overcome his stage fright and he sings a medley of his hits, including the Dinosaur Train theme song!
- Buddy Explores the Tyrannosaurs: Buddy, an adopted T. rex, wishes he knew more about his T. rex ancestors. So, Dad takes him and Tiny on the Dinosaur Train back to the early Cretaceous, to visit an ancestor: an earlier version of Tyrannosaurus rex called Raptorex. Rodney Raptorex is a kid who won’t grow up to be as big as Buddy will, but the two boys find that they not only have a lot of differences, they have a lot in common, too.
- Rainy Day Fight: The kids are stuck cooped up in the nest for a long, rainy spell which leads to them fighting. Mom tells them that the rain has stopped enough that they can leave the nest – but she gives them an assignment: to go find their own “calm space,” where they can calm down enough to get along with each other again. It works – each kid finds something in nature that helps him or her to calm down and be friends again.
