Dinosaur Facts

A visit to a school in the chilly south of the country to work with four groups of Year 4 children who have just started their topic for the second half of the Spring Term.  The spacious and well-appointed classrooms already had some dinosaur themed work on display.  Our fossil expert spotted a display board with some A4-sized print outs that had been posted up.  One of the Learning Support Assistants (LSA’s), explained that the facts had been pinned up in a diagonal shape, this would permit the children to look at the published facts, research whether they were accurate or not and post up their own findings either above or below.

Testing Dinosaur Facts (Published Facts About Dinosaurs)

A Colourful Dinosaur wall display. Facts about dinosaurs.
Everything Dinosaur team members are always impressed by school displays that feature dinosaurs and fossils. For example, these pupils produced a colourful dinosaur wall display during their term topic studying prehistoric animals. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur/LHPA

Visit the Everything Dinosaur website: Everything Dinosaur.

Encouraging Independent Enquiry

The children were being challenged to conduct their own independent research to test the validity of the statements on the print outs.  Could they uncover evidence to either support or refute the statements (facts)?  The eager, young palaeontologists could then post up their responses either above or below the statements, the position on the wall indicating how much they agreed with the statement or how much they disagreed with the statement following their independent enquiries.  This would provide a visual display as well as giving a valuable lesson in working scientifically.

The Year 4 classes were being challenged to look for evidence, assess the validity of the evidence and either to support or refute the statements that had been posted up.

Facts About Dinosaurs

We wish the young scientists well with their endeavours, our fossil expert chatted to many of the children over the course of the day.  They were all enjoying their dinosaur and prehistoric animal term topic and many of the children already possessed a lot of knowledge about dinosaurs.  One confident learner explained in remarkable detail how the dinosaurs (non-avian dinosaurs), became extinct.

An eager dinosaur fan even asked could we come back when she was in Year 5?

For further information about Everything Dinosaur’s science outreach work: Email Everything Dinosaur.