Everything Dinosaur Teams up with Papo to Help School Children

Thanks to all the dinosaur workshops delivered by Everything Dinosaur, the Cheshire based company has built up a strong reputation for their work in schools.  Indeed, over this half-term, Everything Dinosaur has logged up another twenty or so five star reviews from teachers on the dinosaurs for schools website.  One of the great advantages our staff have is that with their teaching knowledge combined with their dinosaur expertise, they can provide lots of advice to support the scheme of work that has been designed for each class.

Dinosaur Word Mats

Everything Dinosaur has teamed up with Papo to help enthuse and inspire the next generation of palaeontologists by using pictures of Papo model dinosaurs to create dinosaur themed word mats for use in schools.

A Dinosaur Themed Word Mat for Use in Schools

Dinosaur themed word mat.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

In the EYFS and Key Stage 1 classes, the teaching team will be helping to develop communication and language skills.  The children will be encouraged to broaden their vocabulary, using different words and to gain a better understanding of their meaning and context.  Dinosaurs as a term topic, will certainly expose the children to a whole range of new words.  Given most children’s fascination with prehistoric animals, dinosaurs can help to inspire word usage as well as encouraging the children to read and write.

Dinosaur Themed Word Mats

For Reception classes, when it comes to literacy, the children will be starting to form their own sentences and to write, trying to include finger spaces, capital letters and full stops. The teaching team will continue to encourage the children to read and write using their phonic knowledge.   At Key Stage 1, children will have moved away from free flowing play activities into much more structured learning.  The school day will be more task-orientated with further progress in literacy and numeracy key components within the planned curriculum for the year.

Many schools adopt a term topic all about dinosaurs for Year 1 and Year 2.  Within this topic, the children will be expected to develop their fiction and non-fiction writing, using increasingly sophisticated language.

A Tyrannosaurus rex Word Mat Incorporating Information on Diet and Geological Age

Helping to develop literacy as well as touching upon scientific working.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Helping to Develop Literacy

The teaching objectives for non-fiction writing involve developing a wider range of nouns and building upon a fascination with dinosaurs to encourage the use of adjectives.  Here the word mat features a single dinosaur, information about the diet of the dinosaur is provided along with a handy geological timeline to indicate when the dinosaur lived.

To learn more about the team behind these free teaching resources: About Us.

To see Everything Dinosaur’s range of Papo prehistoric animal models: Papo Dinosaur Figures.

A Stegosaurus Word Mat for Use in Schools and Other Educational Establishments

A word mat for the Jurassic herbivore Stegosaurus.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture above shows the Stegosaurus word mat.  It uses the Papo model Stegosaurus, as well as providing nouns, information about the diet of this armoured dinosaur and when it lived is given.  In total, five word mats have been developed, these can be downloaded from Everything Dinosaur’s school website for free.  These helpful word mats can be incorporated into wall displays, or laminated and stuck to the children’s work tables to help keep the focus on vocabulary extension.

Everything Dinosaur Comments

Commenting on the addition of a these Papo dinosaur inspired word mats to Everything Dinosaur’s range of teaching downloads, one of the teaching team stated:

“These colourful word mats will make a welcome addition to a teacher’s resources.  Many schools have to rely on materials provided by non-specialist educational companies who simply lack knowledge when it comes to the Dinosauria.  We have found numerous examples of word mats and other teaching aids with spelling mistakes and other inaccuracies.  With these examples, the teachers can be assured that they have been designed by people who combine a knowledge about prehistoric life with expertise in teaching.”