Dinosaurs Helping Reception with Vocabulary and Maths

Children in Reception class at St Michael and St John’s R.C. school have been learning all about dinosaurs this term.  With the enthusiastic help of teachers Mrs Collinge, Mrs Clarkson and teaching assistants Mrs Venguedasalon and Mrs Lambert the budding young palaeontologists have been designing their very own dinosaurs and creating lots of very colourful artwork.  The children have been exploring some of the vocabulary associated with prehistoric animals, there was plenty of evidence of meat-eaters, plant-eaters and other terms related to animals, habitats and food chains.

Imaginative, Creative Dinosaurs on Display

Colourful dinosaurs including a “Spikeosaurus”.

Picture credit: St Michael and St John’s R.C. School/Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaurs Helping Reception

The children had designed their own dinosaur and a number of very imaginative creations were on show, surrounding a large, red “Spikosaurus” with its green spotted tail.  Reception class has thought hard about the sort of questions they would like answers to as they explored dinosaurs and part of the children’s display featured post-it notes with questions the children had written.

Questions All About Dinosaurs

All about dinosaurs. Lots of questions had been prepared.

Picture credit: St Michael and St John’s R.C. School/Everything Dinosaur

Care had been taken with the use of capital letters and full stops and it was clear that phonics sounds had helped the pupils to write their questions down as they considered how to design their very own dinosaur.  There were many examples around the classroom demonstrating how literacy aims had been woven into the prehistoric animal themed teaching activities.

Confidence with Numbers

Numeracy and confidence with numbers had also been carefully considered as part of the scheme of work.  Part of classroom had been dedicated to a dinosaur themed addition and subtraction area, with pictures of Triceratops, Apatosaurus and other dinosaurs being used to help the children familiarise themselves with terms associated with adding and taking away.

Dinosaurs Explore Numeracy

Subtracting dinosaurs.

Picture credit: St Michael and St John’s R.C. School/Everything Dinosaur

Everything Dinosaur had visited the school in support of the term topic, conducting a morning of activities with Reception and Class Three.  Both classrooms were covered in examples of the children’s work. Class Three had compiled an impressive timeline which explained key developments in the history of human civilisation.  Our visit helped to reinforce learning as these Lower Key Stage 2 children explored rocks and fossils.  One little boy in Class Three even brought in a lovely fossil of a fish and some of the Reception children showed us their dinosaur books.

We had a great time helping the children learn about life in the past and how fossils form, the school is certainly a vibrant, dynamic learning environment.

To view the range of prehistoric animal themed toys and gifts including replicas of iconic fossil animals: Dinosaur Themed Toys and Gifts.