Comparing Our Bodies to Dinosaurs – Dinosaur Footprint Measuring Exercise
Whilst on a dinosaur workshop visit to a school in West Yorkshire (Bamford Academy), our fossil expert was given the opportunity to see some of the term topic work undertaken by children in Foundation Stage Two. Artwork and posters on display in and around the classroom indicated that the teaching team had created an imaginative and challenging scheme of work for the children. There was lots of evidence of children exploring the properties of materials, use of numbers and comparing our bodies to the bodies of other animals, including dinosaurs.
A giant footprint (Tyrannosaurus rex) had been made and the children measured the size of this footprint by placing their shoes into the footprint to see how many pairs of shoes would be required to fill it.
A Novel Dinosaur Footprint Measuring Exercise
Measuring and comparing. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.
Picture credit: Bamford Academy/Everything Dinosaur
A Dinosaur Footprint Measuring Exercise
The footprint shape is not quite how a large theropod dinosaur’s footprint would have actually looked like. We were able to supply some drawings of real dinosaur footprint impressions from our collection, this helped form an extension, measuring activity as part of our dinosaur workshop visit. Our fossil expert also had to alter some of the text that the teachers had put up, but this did not detract from this excellent and novel teaching idea.
The Foundation Stage Two class thoroughly enjoyed their dinosaur workshop. They enthusiastically took part in the physical activities and one of the teaching assistants stated:
“The fossils were very exciting to touch and hold and the movements and actions made the programme more tactile for Early Years.”
Everything Dinosaur stocks an extensive range of dinosaur themed toys and games including replicas of iconic fossil animals. To view the range available from Everything Dinosaur: Learning – Dinosaur Toys and Games.