Special “Dinovember” at Barton Moss Community Primary School

Pupils Learn All About Dinosaurs at Barton Moss Community Primary

Year 3 pupils at Barton Moss Community Primary have been turning this month into “Dinovember” with a whole range of dinosaur and fossil themed activities as the children learn all about prehistoric animals.   Under the tutelage of Mr Sagar and Miss Wardle both classes of Year 3 pupils have been studying dinosaurs and the classrooms have on display some lovely examples of the children’s drawings and creative writing.  A team member from Everything Dinosaur was invited along to show the children some fossils and to illustrate the size and scale of dinosaurs.  The pupils were quick to demonstrate their knowledge and to point out which dinosaurs were carnivores and which were herbivores.

“Dinovember”

Helped by the enthusiastic Teaching Assistants, Miss Marsh and Miss Thomas, each class have been looking after their very own dinosaur egg and the children are waiting to see what will happen next.

One of the Dinosaur Eggs in the Classroom is Getting Ready to Hatch

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Eggshell

Some of the pupils got to examine pieces of real dinosaur egg shell and they learned the reasons why dinosaur eggs were not as big as you might imagine.  Lots of questions were asked and our dinosaur expert was able to answer most of them, taking time out to explain using some of the fossils and to check the children’s understanding, we really enjoyed looking at some of the children’s dinosaur drawings including Kamila and her “Kamila-oh-saurus”.

The Second Dinosaur Egg in Mr Sagar’s Class

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Tyler and Tylosaurus

Young Tyler was told all about a huge marine reptile that has a similar name to his (Tylosaurus).  Our dinosaur expert explained that Tylosaurus ate ammonites and other sea creatures and there were some ammonite fossils on hand so that the children learn a little bit more about these sea creatures, which Cain correctly guessed were related to today’s squid.  Caprice even produced a wonderful mime of an ammonite, swimming, bobbing up and down in the water and shooting out its tentacles to catch a fish.

Young Denver, in Mr Sagar’s class learned that he too, shares a name with a prehistoric animal, this time it’s a dinosaur – Denversaurus.  Scale drawings of both the Tylosaurus and the Denversaurus have been sent over to the school so that the children can see how big these extinct animals actually were.  Special thanks to Ethan and his chums for explaining what extinct meant and to Cole for remembering what omnivores ate.

Some of the Examples of the Children’s Artwork 

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Drawings

Oliver had produced a most impressive drawing of a dinosaur, he had decided to call his dinosaur Fred.  It’s a dinosaur with spikes on his back and a very loud roar.

Examples of the Children’s Work Posted up on the Classes Working Wall

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

With a new dinosaur being named and described on average every two to three weeks, there are a lot of dinosaur discoveries going on around the world at the moment, Michael and Anthony, both from Poland, got to hold a piece of a backbone from a marine reptile that had been recently excavated in the country whilst Jack learned that prehistoric animal bones can be found in this country too.  Our thanks to Courtney-May and Amy for taking notes.  Charlie and his chums correctly identified how closely related to dinosaur’s birds are, whilst Lucy helped with the experiments and Aidan got to help guess the fossil.

For further information about Everything Dinosaur’s huge range of dinosaur themed learning materials, gifts and toys: Dinosaur Themed Gifts and Toys.

Some of the questions posed by the children were very thought provoking and demonstrated a clear understanding of the term topic and there were a number of budding palaeontologists in each class. All in all, a rewarding term topic for both teachers and pupils and as a final challenge the children were asked to compose a thank you letter to Everything Dinosaur, a test of their recall plus an ability to show off their creative writing skills.