Foundation Unit Studies Dinosaurs

It was an exciting Friday for the children at the Foundation Unit at Purston Infant School (West Yorkshire) as yesterday, they had a visit from Everything Dinosaur to help them learn all about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals.  The two classes of Lower Foundation Stage along with the two classes of Upper Foundation Stage have been learning about dinosaurs and there was lots of colourful artwork on display around the classrooms.

One of the Colourful Dinosaur Inspired Displays at the School

Colourful prehistoric animals.  Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Foundation Unit Studies Dinosaurs

The children have two beautiful, giant dinosaur eggs to look after.  Both the eggs were made from paper mache.  In discussion, with the teaching team we suggested that an extension activity could involve the children thinking about what sort of animals lay eggs/do not lay eggs.

Perhaps a classroom display could be created with the children being encouraged to list the types of animals they know that lay eggs.  Can the children sort and group the animals that they have thought of?  For example, those with scales, those with feathers, those that can fly etc.  What might a dinosaur nest be made off?  Can the children sort out different types of material and work out which materials would be good/would not be good to line a nest for a dinosaur egg?

A Giant Dinosaur Egg in a Classroom

A big, blue dinosaur egg. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

A Dinosaur Workshop

Under the enthusiastic tutelage of the teachers and their support staff the children were certainly enjoying this term topic and there was lots of evidence on display of the children enjoying a broad based, varied activity topic.  The Lower Foundation Stage children had a wonderful sensory bin filled with sand and small stones as well as dinosaur skeletons for them to explore.  In addition, dinosaur models had been made using all sorts of household odds and ends, helping the children to learn about the properties of different materials.

The older children in the two Upper Foundation Stage classes (Monkeys 1 and Monkeys 2) had been busy painting their favourite dinosaurs and there was lots of expressive artwork posted up around the classroom as well as plenty of evidence of vocabulary development.

Fossil Themed Counting Activities

During the dinosaur workshops with the children, our dinosaur expert encouraged the children’s confidence with counting by introducing simple dinosaur fossil themed counting activities all developed with the aim of helping the budding young palaeontologists to improve their confidence in counting and their understanding of numbers.

Enabling Children to Explore and Play Using a Wide Range of Media

Using different media, important in learning and development. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Our dinosaur expert, promised to email over some more extension resources to help support the scheme of work prepared by the dedicated teaching team, one of whom stated “the children were very responsive and enjoyed looking at all the resources”.

To view the range of prehistoric animal toys and games stocked by Everything Dinosaur: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.