Year 2 Tackle Dinosaurs
It was a busy day for High Flyers, Bright Sparks and Whizz Kids, the three classes in Year 2 at Anfield Road Primary yesterday. The children had just started their term topic “Can you Walk with Dinosaurs?” as well as having just moved into their brand-new classrooms.
Can You Walk with Dinosaurs?
The enthusiastic teaching team had prepared for the dinosaur and fossil themed workshop delivered by Everything Dinosaur, by helping the children to explore what they already knew about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, part of a teaching method, we refer to as KWL – what children know? What they would like to know and what have they learned at the end of the topic? This is a great way to start a term topic and the outcomes from this class exercise can provide an invaluable guide to planning the scheme of work.
For resources for a dinosaur themed teaching topic: Everything Dinosaur.
Studying Triceratops
The children in High Flyers class had used cut-outs of Triceratops (during our workshop we explored the chin of a Triceratops), to write down what they know about dinosaurs. Lots of amazing pre-knowledge being demonstrated and plenty of room on the spacious display wall for lots of other dinosaur related facts.
What Do We Know About Dinosaurs? (High Flyers)
Children explore what they know about dinosaurs.
Picture credit: Anfield Road Primary/Everything Dinosaur
A Dinosaur World Ready for Creative, Imaginative Play (Bright Sparks)
A prehistoric park ready for creative, imaginative play in the classroom.
Picture credit: Anfield Road Primary/Everything Dinosaur
For inexpensive dinosaur models and figures: Mojo Fun Dinosaur Models.
The teacher in the Bright Sparks classroom had helped the children create a miniature dinosaur world. This is a great way of helping the children to work out what resources animals need to survive and no doubt this mini “Jurassic Park” will inspire the children when it comes to fiction and non-fiction writing.
Over the course of the day, our dinosaur expert met a number of children who had names quite similar to the names of some dinosaurs. We challenged the children to design their own dinosaur, labelling the body parts (especially the skull). Could they come up with a name for their new dinosaur?
Morgan and Morganucodon
During one of our dinosaur workshops we met a little boy called Morgan. He explained that a big asteroid hit the Earth and that helped wipe out the dinosaurs. Morgan and all his friends showed great listening skills and they joined in all the exercises with tremendous enthusiasm. Coincidentally, the Everything Dinosaur team member who led the workshops at the school is currently proof reading a new book all about prehistoric mammals, some of which would have scurried around the feet of dinosaurs.
One of the earliest mammals was a little mouse-sized creature called Morganucodon (pronounced Mor-gan-yew-coe-don), so, especially for Morgan, we have included a picture of this Triassic mammal in our article.
A Picture of Morganucodon For Morgan and His Friends
An illustration of the Triassic mammal Morganucodon.
For its size, this little mammal had a big brain. In the dinosaur themed workshop, we challenged the children to test their brains against the brain of the biggest, heaviest armoured dinosaur known to science, just one of the many activities and topic areas covered as we compared people to dinosaurs.
Ready to Display All the Dinosaur Themed Work (Whizz Kids)
A wall in the classroom ready to display dinosaur themed work.
Picture credit: Anfield Road Primary/Everything Dinosaur
Dinosaurs in the New Classrooms
We had the opportunity to take a quick look around the new classrooms. The children had just moved into them earlier in the week. The light, airy and superbly appointed classrooms looked fantastic. The teaching team and the rest of the dedicated staff at Anfield Road Primary are quite rightly very proud of these new teaching facilities, we look forward to seeing lots of lovely dinosaur themed numeracy and literacy displays posted on the walls of the spacious classrooms.
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