Dinosaurs Inspire Baking

The children in Year 2 (Owls and Hedgehogs classes), at Spire Nursery and Infant School (Derbyshire), have been learning all about dinosaurs, fossils and prehistoric animals this term.  A team member from Everything Dinosaur visited the school last week to conduct some workshops with the children as part of a challenging, diverse and exciting scheme of work that had been devised by the dedicated teaching team.

“Triassic Treats”

Over the last few weeks the children have shared lots of amazing information about dinosaurs and set out what aspects of the lives of dinosaurs that they would like to explore.  The eager, young palaeontologists have been learning about when dinosaurs lived, where they lived and what they ate.  As part of an exploration of food and dinosaur body shapes the children in Year 2 made some super dinosaur themed cakes and biscuits. We took the opportunity to photograph the children’s “Triassic treats”.

Trays of Dinosaur Inspired Tasty Cakes and Biscuits

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Developing Creativity

Taking part in a baking activity permits the children to practice their measuring and motor skills as well as introducing the idea of following a set of instructions to achieve a desired outcome.  Decorating the various dinosaur themed treats certainly brought out the children’s creative flair.

Young Elliott was Very Proud of the Dinosaur Biscuit that he had Made

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

For “Triassic Treats” and other dinosaur themed goodies: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.

Herbivores, Carnivores and Omnivores

Over the course of the term topic the children have been learning about simple food webs and what animal’s need to keep them safe and well.  During our workshops with the classes our dinosaur expert checked learning by testing the children’s knowledge about herbivores, carnivores and omnivores.  One of the role-play areas in a classroom had been turned into a “dinosaur dig site”, permitting the children the opportunity to search for dinosaur bones, allowing the children to experience what it is like to be a real palaeontologist.

After the Everything Dinosaur workshops in the morning, the children were going to have an afternoon of science, creating simple experiments to study the way in which some dinosaurs fed.  We hope that the additional resources, experiment ideas and lesson plans we provided helps to support, what is already a diverse and challenging scheme of work.

Whilst in one of the classrooms, our dinosaur expert was able to see some of the excellent dinosaur themed work completed by the children.  The classes had been finding out lots of information about dinosaurs from a variety of sources to help them create their own non-fiction book.  Lots of dinosaur books were on display, the Year 2 pupils had been exploring different texts, all with a prehistoric animal theme.

Shapes and Numeracy

There is a big focus on helping the children gain confidence with numbers.  The children have been studying simple addition and subtraction problems, our dinosaur footprint measuring exercise that we provided should help support this area of the curriculum nicely.  The enthusiastic teaching team have been using dinosaurs to help children appreciate and learn about different shapes.  On the wall outside the Year 2 classrooms, examples of dinosaurs made from different shaped pieces of felt were on display.

Learning About Different Shapes Using Dinosaurs

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Visit the Everything Dinosaur website: Everything Dinosaur.