Difficulty: Explorer (Level 1)
Mary Anning was born in England in 1799. She grew up in a beach town called Lyme Regis. Anning’s family didn’t have much money. So Anning and her brother, Joseph, explored the beach. They wanted to find things to sell.
Anning loved to search the coast for unusual objects. She called them curiosities. When she was 12, she and her brother found the skull of an animal sticking out of a cliff.
At first, they thought it was a crocodile. But they had actually found an ancient reptile called an ichthyosaur.
As she grew older, Anning found even more incredible animals. She found a plesiosaur, which is a prehistoric sea reptile with a very long neck. She also found an ancient flying reptile called a Dimorphodon.
She became famous for finding so many fossils. Scientists would visit Anning to seek her advice on fossils.
Today, people remember her as one of the greatest fossil hunters in history.
Mary’s secret diary
Write a diary entry from Mary Anning’s point of view. Imagine how she felt when she found the ichthyosaur skeleton.
Date: ______________
Location: The cliffs of Lyme Regis, England
Dear Diary,
Today started out like any other stormy morning on the coast. Joseph and I hurried out to
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Suddenly, Joseph shouted and pointed ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I immediately _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
In that moment, I felt _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Beyond belief,
Mary Anning
Anning’s tongue twister
“She sells seashells by the seashore” is a famous tongue twister. It is believed to be inspired by Anning’s life. This sentence is hard to say quickly because of the repeated sounds: “s”, “sh” and “ells”. Write your own tongue twister based on one of her famous fossil discoveries.
Materials
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pen or pencil
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paper
Instructions
1. Pick one of Anning’s famous discoveries. Then, choose a letter that best represents this discovery.
2. Create a list of words that start with your chosen letter. The closer the words sound to one another, the better the tongue twister will be. If you can relate them to the fossil, the beach or digging, that’s even better.
3. Connect your words to form a sentence or two. Try to include as many words as possible starting with your chosen letter.
4. Read your tongue twister aloud to make sure it flows well. Challenge your friends and family to say it quickly.
