School Pupils Say Thank you for Dinosaur Teaching Session

The Everything Dinosaur mail bag was even bigger today than normal.  The postman handed us a big envelope which contained thank you letters written to us by school pupils after a recent visit from one of our dinosaur experts to carry out some prehistoric animal themed experiments.

Thank You Letters

The Year two pupils (aged 6-7 years), at Rode Heath Primary School in Cheshire have been busy studying dinosaurs this term with their teacher Mrs Woollam and Miss Moss, Miss Gater and Mrs Hulse.  The children have been doing all sorts of dinosaur themed activities, we saw some amazing artwork in their classroom and we did our best to answer all the questions from the eager young palaeontologists that we met.

A Thank you Letter from Ayshia

Ayshia shows her appreciation of Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Ayshia/Everything Dinosaur

Encouraging Creative Writing

By working on a thank you letter, the children can be encouraged to write creatively.  Learning and understanding can be checked along with sentence construction and writing ability.  It is always a good idea for a teacher to encourage her charges to write about any school visit and every letter that we receive at Everything Dinosaur is read by our team members.

Thank you Noah.

Picture credit: Noah/Everything Dinosaur

As a special treat, the class are going to the Great Orme, a prominent headland situated at Llandudno (North Wales).  The limestone rocks at the top of the Great Orme contain lots of fossils.  The children should be able to find fossils of brachiopods (look like clams but brachiopods are not closely related to shellfish) and fossils of ancient corals.  The fossils are very easy to find, there are lots of small rocks to examine around the man made limestone exposures and scree slopes.

North Wales in the Carboniferous

Around 330 million years ago (Carboniferous geological period), this part of North Wales was at the bottom of a shallow tropical sea.  There were extensive coral reefs and the waters teemed with life, the fossils are the ancient remains of these reefs and they are all at least 100 million years older than the vast majority of dinosaur fossils.

Thomas Thanks Everything Dinosaur for their Visit to his School

Thomas says thanks.

Picture credit: Thomas/Everything Dinosaur

We are sure that the children will have a great time and it is a lovely way to round off the teaching topic.

Our thanks to the teaching staff and the children at Rode Heath Primary for the lovely letters, examples of which we have reproduced below.

Thank you for your flying reptile drawing – Olivia the Oviraptor.  Good luck finding your own fossil on the school trip Amelie and we appreciate your comment about the dinosaur claws Ashton (A).  Aiden now knows that Spinosaurus was very probably bigger than T. rex and Ellie can draw super fossil bones and Hope can create a spotted dinosaur.  Aki was just brilliant wearing the hard hat and demonstrating some of the equipment that we use and we loved your letter Sam.

Dinosaur Teeth and a Fearsome Sea Monster

Emma drew us some dinosaur teeth and Sam (N) sent us a picture of a fearsome sea monster, whilst Jasmine told us she loved looking at the claws best.  Jonny (H) wrote that he was amazed when the size of the Ankylosaurus was revealed and Lucas sent us a picture of a big smiley face!  Lovely writing Codie and thank you for your red dinosaur it looks really good next to the ammonite picture that Millie kindly included in her letter to us.  James chose to put a bright red, meat-eating dinosaur on the top of his letter to us whilst Lottie sent us a picture of a purple Diplodocus feeding on some leaves.

Colourful Illustrations

We noted that the school now has a pupil called Ashtonosaurus (thanks Ashton), along with a Leilasaurus (thanks Leila).  A very colourful letter was sent in by Poem, the border was illustrated with pink and yellow and the writing was very neat – well done!

Thomas remembered what we said about dinosaurs and their teeth, whilst Noah ended his letter by wishing that dinosaurs were not extinct.  Esmee sent us pictures of three long-necked dinosaurs with her letter and we are pleased to hear that her mummy likes dinosaurs too.  Ayshia just loved learning about dinosaurs especially Dracorex and Albie sent us a bright yellow thank you letter which included a picture of a yellow, stripped dinosaur and a fact about Giganotosaurus.

Esmee says thank you.

Picture credit: Esmee/Everything Dinosaur

Encouraging school children to write a thank you letter after a school visit makes a great extension activity.  Once again our thanks to the pupils and teachers at Rode Heath Primary.

To view the range of dinosaur themed educational items available from Everything Dinosaur: Visit Everything Dinosaur.