Dinosaurs – End of Topic “Wow”!

For the Reception class at St Lawrence CE Primary, today was a special “dinosaur day”, as to help draw their term topic to a close, a visit from Everything Dinosaur had been arranged to assist with the children learning about dinosaurs.  The eager explorers and budding young palaeontologists have been studying dinosaurs and fossils since the beginning of the Spring Term and there was a lot of lovely dinosaur themed writing and prehistoric animal inspired artwork on display in the classroom.

Learning About Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs on Display in the Classroom

Lots of literacy and numeracy activities displayed.

Picture credit: St Lawrence CE Primary/Everything Dinosaur

The children had certainly been enjoying their topic.  Teacher Mrs Rogerson, ably supported by the two teaching assistants, had put together an exciting and diverse scheme of work for the children.  The Reception class had been involved in a wide range of activities, all aimed at helping to develop everyday skills and to support learning.  The children had even brought in some of their dinosaur models and toys from home.  The classroom had been turned into a Lancashire’s very own “Jurassic Park”!

Inspiring Confidence with Numbers

The extension ideas and additional resources provided by our fossil expert will help develop the children’s confidence with numbers.  Will they be up to one of our “pinkie palaeontologist challenges” and have a go at calculating just how big some dinosaur footprints could be?  Working in small groups, the children demonstrated a good grasp of simple subtraction and they were confident when it came to using the measuring cubes and comparing their own hands to the feet of some dinosaurs.

One of the other extension activities involves an unusual way of measuring a fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex, perhaps the class can try this activity in the hall, as quite a bit of space will be needed.

Encouraging Writing and Learning About Dinosaurs

The children demonstrated lots of existing knowledge, using terms like Cretaceous and Mesozoic, which was most impressive.  We set some writing challenges, all based around non-fiction writing.  We wonder if any of the children’s dinosaur facts will get posted up onto the display wall, next to all their wonderful artwork?

Chalk Drawings of Dinosaurs on Display

Reception class uses different materials to explore dinosaurs.

Picture credit: St Lawrence CE Primary/Everything Dinosaur

Linking Dinosaurs and Space

After half-term the children will be moving on to learn all about space and the planets.  Whilst Everything Dinosaur worked with the children in the spacious hall, the teaching assistants could prepare the classroom in readiness for the new topic.  How to link dinosaurs and space?  Fortunately, our expert was on hand to explain which dinosaur fossils have been into space and to send links to Mrs Rogerson to help support the topic transition.

In addition, when the extraterrestrial object slammed into planet Earth, marking the end of the “Age of the Dinosaurs”, the explosion was so powerful that sea creatures were shot so high into the air, that they may have left Earth’s orbit.  Some ammonites could have landed on the moon!

Ammonites Shot into Outer Space

How many Ammonites can you count?

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Everything Dinosaur supplies several ammonite figures and replicas of prehistoric invertebrates including trilobites and nautiloids. To view this range: Replica Fossils and Prehistoric Animal Models.