Dinosaur Workshops at All Saints’ C of E Primary School (Stockport)

Back in February, one of the fossil experts at Everything Dinosaur visited All Saints’ Primary (Marple, Stockport, Cheshire), to conduct a couple of dinosaur themed workshops with the children in Key Stage 1.  Over the course of the morning, the Year 1 and Year 2 children were given lots of challenges as part of our support for the diverse and very enriched scheme of work the teaching team had devised for the term topic.

Writing Thank You Letters

One of the challenges we set was for the children to write a thank you letter.  Thank you letters provide an excellent opportunity for the children to practice their hand-writing as well as helping to reinforce what the children learned and could recall from the workshop we provided.

Bella has Sent Everything Dinosaur a Thank You Letter

Bella’s thank you letter to Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Workshop

Bella wrote to say that her favourite part was learning all about Tyrannosaurus rex and holding all the fossils.  Bella recalled that when you first touch real fossils they feel cold and that T. rex had two fingers on each hand.

Oliver’s Thank You Letter

Oliver says thank you.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Oliver included a picture of a brown coloured Triceratops on the back of his thank you missive.  In his letter he explained he liked learning how old fossils were.  A letter writing activity such as this provides school children with an opportunity to learn how to lay out a letter in the correct format as well as getting to grips with sentence construction.  Oliver demonstrated lots of lovely finger spacing between his words and he kept his writing in between the lines beautifully.

Ava’s Thank You Letter Sent into Our Office

Ava’s thank you letter to Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Children Send in Thank You Letters

Ava included a lovely drawing in with her letter, lots of smiling faces.  A special thank you to Jacob, Henry, Kieran, Ava, Tyler, Leila, Edward, Oliver, Brooke, Jack, James, Bella, Charlie, Kelan, Kieran, Isla, Louie, Freya, Lilly, Isaac, Ethan, Jude, Finley, Lois, Erin, Soren, Katie and to all the children involved.

Lois wrote to say:

“Thank you for letting me see the fossils and thank you for the stickers.”

You are most welcome, a special thank you from all the team members at Everything Dinosaur to all the children who sent letters into us.  Also a big Iguanodon thumbs up to the enthusiastic teaching team who helped us on the day and inspired the children to produce the letters.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Everything Dinosaur.

Well done to all!  Pleased to hear that everyone loved our dinosaur workshop for Key Stage 1.

Dragons and Dinosaurs

Whilst in the West Midlands visiting Oasis Academy Short Heath to deliver a pair of dinosaur workshops, Everything Dinosaur’s fossil expert was given the opportunity to view some amazing dragon models made by pupils and parents.  The children in Year 1 at the Academy are studying dinosaurs for the remainder of the Spring Term and as part of the exciting scheme of work that had been devised for them, Everything Dinosaur had been invited into the school to provide dinosaur workshops for each class.

An area of the large and well appointed school hall used by the Breakfast Club had been made available for Everything Dinosaur to use, but a good portion of the rest of it had been dedicated to displaying some amazing dragon models that parents and pupils had made as part of a week of learning all about these mythical creatures.

Dragon Models on Display at Oasis Academy Short Heath

Dragons on display.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaurs and Dragons

Legends and stories about dragons can be found in many cultures.  However, they are principally associated with China.  It is thought that the discovery of dinosaur bones and teeth gave rise to the dragon myth.  Fossils, including those of dinosaurs, have been weathering out of rocks for millions of years.  Parts of China have particularly rich fossil deposits and it is likely that the discovery of these strange and often immense objects were explained away as being the long dead remains of dragons – how close to the truth they were!

Dragon Myth Probably Inspired by Dinosaur Fossil Finds

The dragon myth was very probably inspired by the discovery of dinosaur fossils.

The First Documented Fossil Find

The children in Year 1, learning all about dinosaurs and fossils might hear about the discoveries made by Mary Anning, or perhaps the work on dinosaurs carried out by Sir Richard Owen or Gideon Mantell.  However, the first record of a dinosaur fossil discovery dates back more than seventeen hundred years.  The first description of a probable dinosaur fossil bone discovery can be found in a book written around 300 AD by the Chinese scholar Chang Qu.  He describes the finding of “dragon bones” at Wucheng, in what is now Sichuan Province (south-western China).

Perhaps the First Written Record of a Dinosaur Fossil Discovery

The first written record of a dinosaur fossil discovery.

Sichuan Province is now famous for its dinosaur discoveries and a number of dinosaur genera have been named from fossil discoveries theropods, armoured dinosaurs and numerous sauropods including perhaps the most famous of all the Sichuan Province dinosaurs Shunosaurus “Sichuan Province Lizard”.

A Model of Shunosaurus (Wild Safari Prehistoric World Shunosaurus)

Available from Everything Dinosaur – Shunosaurus.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To view the complete range of Wild Safari Prehistoric Animal models including the Shunosaurus replica: Wild Safari Prehistoric World Figures.

Dressing Up for Dinosaur Day

To mark the start of a week of dinosaur and fossil themed learning, children in Year 2 at Southglade Primary School (Nottinghamshire, England), were given the opportunity to wear their favourite dinosaur T-shirt to school.  Some children had brought in dinosaur costumes, others had their faces painted, so the Everything Dinosaur team member who spent the morning with the two classes felt very much at home.

Whilst talking through the learning objectives for the dinosaur workshops with members of the enthusiastic teaching team, our expert remarked on how spacious and well-organised the classrooms were.  There was lots of evidence of various challenging fiction and non-fiction based writing projects on display, hopefully the suggestion about children in class 2HD having a pet Triceratops and what adventures it might get up to might inspire these budding young palaeontologists to write a short story about a dinosaur visiting their school.

Dinosaur Day

Teaching Assistant Mrs Walker had got into the spirit of the scheme of work by converting a hat into a dinosaur, how very creative.  Can the children work out whether this dinosaur was a carnivore or a herbivore by examining the triangular and very sharp-looking teeth that Mrs Walker had cleverly added to her dinosaur themed headgear?

Mrs Walker – Complete with Dinosaur Hat

Mrs Walker with her dinosaur hat.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur/Southglade Primary School

Enthusiastic and Creative Teaching Teams

Under the dedicated tutelage of the enthusiastic and creative teaching team the children in classes 2E and 2HD are bound to have lots fun whilst learning a great deal about prehistoric animals over the next few days.   Mrs Walker had even added some big green eyes to her dinosaur hat.  Can the children come up with a name for this dinosaur, how about “hatty-saurus”!

Dinosaur Hat Up Close

A big-eyed dinosaur with spikes.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur/Southglade Primary School

The green spikes located on the head (also known as the skull, as discovered by Year 2 today), are very impressive and we love the big eye.  All to soon, it was time to leave, but we provided a dinosaur themed measuring exercise for the children to try, plus a novel extension activity that involves using some everyday materials to measure just how large a Tyrannosaurus rex could be.

Further Extension Resources to Support Learning Objectives

 Once back at the Everything Dinosaur HQ there was just time to send out some emails with dinosaur drawing materials and fact sheets to help support the learning objectives.

To view the range of educational, dinosaur-themed toys and games available from Everything Dinosaur: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.

Kicking off the Term Topic – Dinosaurs

Children in Class One and Class Two at All Saints’ Church of England Primary School (Stockport, Cheshire), have started the second half of the spring term with a real roar!  These two classes are studying dinosaurs, fossils and life in the past with the help of their enthusiastic teachers Mrs Noble and Mrs Manning.

Although the term topic has only just started, the classrooms have lots of lovely dinosaur themed writing on display.  In Mrs Manning’s Year 1 classroom, a dinosaur museum has been set up, perhaps some of the measuring activities we suggested after our workshop might feature amongst the children’s exhibits.

A Dinosaur Museum

The Dinosaur Museum in the Classroom

The dinosaur museum in Class One.

Picture credit: All Saints’ Church of England Primary School/Everything Dinosaur

Children Study Dinosaurs

We noticed one of Everything Dinosaur’s inflatable dinosaurs on display in the dinosaur museum – it is an inflatable Stegosaurus!  As Mrs Manning confessed that her favourite dinosaur was another type of armoured dinosaur, an Ankylosaurus (pronounced an-KEE-loh-sore-us), the workshop format was altered slightly to allow the children to explore the size and scale of prehistoric animals using Ankylosaurus.  We were even able to compare our brains to the brain of this plant-eating, Late Cretaceous giant.

To learn more about the huge range of dinosaur toys we stock: Everything Dinosaur.

Gaining Confidence with Adjectives

When asked to describe the size of the huge ammonite fossil, the children came out with lots of fantastic adjectives, the ammonite was described as “colossal”, “gigantic”, “massive” and we even had “enormous” – all super adjectives that impressed the Everything Dinosaur expert who was leading the workshop.

Over the course of the morning the classes learned lots of amazing dinosaur facts, with the teachers taking many photographs, all of which could be used in the recounting and recall activities scheduled for the afternoon.

Marine Reptiles As Well

With the dedicated support of the teaching assistants the children had been sorting dinosaurs into herbivores and carnivores.  Reece had been colouring a drawing of a marine reptile, an Elasmosaurus (ee-las-mo-sore-us).  He confidently told our dinosaur expert that Elasmosaurus was a plesiosaur.

A Drawing of a Marine Reptile (Elasmosaurus)

Reece and his Elasmosaur drawing.

Picture credit: All Saints’ Church of England Primary School/Reece from Class One

Fossil Themed Workshop

For one of the extension resources, we challenged the children to have a go at designing their very own dinosaur.  Perhaps, some of the dinosaurs that the children create might have long necks like Elasmosaurus, or even flippers, that would be a very intriguing dinosaur indeed!  Could the children make a dinosaur model using modelling clay or perhaps building bricks?  If the children create their very own dinosaur, we would like to see lots of lovely adjectives used to describe their design, in addition, could they come up with a name to describe their prehistoric animal?

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