Early Years Foundation Reception

18 04, 2016

Reception Teacher Thanks Everything Dinosaur after Special Event

By Mike|2024-05-05T21:54:20+01:00April 18th, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, General Teaching|Comments Off on Reception Teacher Thanks Everything Dinosaur after Special Event

Thank You Everything Dinosaur

Last Friday saw Everything Dinosaur up in the Manchester area (north-west England) delivering a series of dinosaur and fossil themed workshops aimed at Reception-aged children. Our visits certainly helped to inspire the three classes at Bowlee Park Community School who had just embarked on their dinosaur term topic. Our objective was to provide a very tactile workshop aimed at both visual and kinaesthetic learners. This well-resourced school had a super “digital den” that we were able to use for the day. It felt quite surreal handling 180-million-year-old Ammonite fossils in such a futuristic setting.

Moving Fossils into the Digital Den at the Start of the Day

Moving the fossils to the digital den for the start of the dinosaur workshop.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Start of the Topic Provocation

Over the course of the day, our dinosaur expert delivered three workshops, each aimed at inspiring pupils and teachers alike. They acted as a provocation to help “kick start” the dinosaur themed term topic. Our workshop and the extra teaching resources we provided proved to be a big hit.

Everything Dinosaur

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Everything Dinosaur.

One of the Reception class teachers who had booked us emailed this morning to say:

“Thanks again for your workshops on Friday. Both the children and staff thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and it was a wonderful start to our topic. Also, thank you for taking the time to email me with resources for Tyler. I have passed them onto Miss Pilkington (his teacher), who also sends her thanks.”

What resources did we email over especially for Tyler? A Tylosaurus fact sheet and scale drawing of course.

To contact Everything Dinosaur to request information on our work in schools: Contact Everything Dinosaur

3 04, 2016

Helpful Identification Key for Prehistoric Animal Skeleton Set

By Mike|2024-05-05T21:51:17+01:00April 3rd, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, Key Stage 1/2|Comments Off on Helpful Identification Key for Prehistoric Animal Skeleton Set

Identifying Prehistoric Animal Skeletons

At Everything Dinosaur, we take pride in going that extra mile to support learning. Take for example, our set of twelve prehistoric animal skeletons. These are models of the skeletons of prehistoric animals. These little critters are ideal for use in the school sand pit to help young explorers experience the excitement of digging out their very own dinosaur fossils. The sand play area makes an ideal resource for a topic on dinosaurs and life in the past. Simply bury the prehistoric animal skeletons in the sand and invite the class to become palaeontologists and to have a go at “digging up dinosaurs”.

Prehistoric Animal Skeletons

Using plastic spades and old paint brushes the children can explore the sand area and excavate the plastic models. This is an ideal activity suitable for FS1 (Nursery) through to Year 1 (Lower Key Stage 1).

Digging for Dinosaurs and Fossils Just Like a Palaeontologist

Year 1 and dinosaurs. Digging for dinosaurs in the sand.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To view the set of twelve dinosaur and prehistoric animal skeletons, find them in this section of the Everything Dinosaur website: Replica Fossils, Dinosaur Themed Crafts and Toys.

Identifying the Models

But what happens if one of the children asks which dinosaur is this? Not to worry Everything Dinosaur has this covered too. We have produced a handy key to help identify the different prehistoric animals in the set, all twelve models can be identified and you don’t need to ask for the services of a senior academic at a Natural History Museum.

Everything Dinosaur has Produced a Helpful Identification Key

A set of assorted prehistoric animal and dinosaur skeletons.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The key can help to identify the twelve different models in the set, we have even provided a useful pronunciation guide. To request a chart simply email Everything Dinosaur: Email Everything Dinosaur.

Extension Ideas

Having dug out the models, the children can use the key to help sort them out, can they divide them into plant-eaters and meat-eaters? For Year 1 children, they can be set the challenge of finding out about each particular prehistoric animal by undertaking some independent research using the internet or library books. Which models represent dinosaurs?

For further information and assistance, visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Everything Dinosaur.

24 03, 2016

A Beautiful “Librarysaurus”

By Mike|2024-05-05T19:03:22+01:00March 24th, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, General Teaching|Comments Off on A Beautiful “Librarysaurus”

Inspiring Young Readers

Whilst on a visit to a primary school in the West Midlands to deliver a series of dinosaur workshops, we had the opportunity to view the well-stocked library. The school, part of The Federation of Abbey Infant and Abbey Junior Schools has been rated as “Good” by the most recent Ofsted inspection.

A Librarysaurus

We were also able to see and admire many examples of the children’s work on display in the uncluttered corridors. Our dinosaur expert had been asked to work with Foundation Stage classes, the day of teaching involved conducting sessions with the three Reception classes as well as working with morning and afternoon Nursery.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a range of dinosaur themed toys and games, all tested and approved by our teaching team: Educational Dinosaur Toys.

The venue was the spacious school hall, which also contained a wonderful library resource.

The Well-Stocked Library in the Primary School

A librarysaurus on show in the school library. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

We were most impressed by the unusual way in which some of the books were stored. Our dinosaur expert nick-named the two dinosaur themed book storage units “Librarysaurus”. A well-stocked, inviting library with dinosaurs can provide the stimulation to young children to explore books, a passion for reading could develop that might last a lifetime. During a break from our dinosaur themed workshops, our expert was able to peruse the shelves, lots of non-fiction and fiction titles for the children to read.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: Everything Dinosaur.

Ofsted Comments

We noted that in the most recent Ofsted report (focusing on Abbey Infant School), the inspector stated:

“Pupils enter Year 1 with skills slightly above those expected for their age. Due to good quality teaching, they continue to make good progress in Years 1 and 2 and are well-prepared for their move to the juniors. They leave Year 2 with standards above those normally expected for their age in reading, and well above in writing and mathematics.”

Perhaps the dinosaur inspired library furniture helps to enthuse the children. During our visit we observed lots of pre-knowledge being demonstrated by the Foundation Stage children. There was also some examples of applied learning, clearly, under the expert and enthusiastic tutelage of the teaching team the children had enjoyed learning all about dinosaurs.

To learn more about Everything Dinosaur’s outreach work: Contact Everything Dinosaur.

28 02, 2016

John Locke Academy Explores Amazing Dinosaurs

By Mike|2024-05-05T19:01:21+01:00February 28th, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception|Comments Off on John Locke Academy Explores Amazing Dinosaurs

Foundation Stage Children Discover Dinosaurs (Dinosaurs with John Locke Academy)

Friday was “find a dinosaur day” for the Foundation classes at John Locke Academy. The eager, young prehistoric animal fans in Nursery and Reception have just started their term topic and it’s all about dinosaurs! In the well organised and spacious classrooms there were lots of creative, dinosaur themed activities for the children to get to grips with. There was even a set of very colourful dinosaur eggs on display. It looks like the children had enjoyed making a nest for these huge eggs.

Dinosaurs with John Locke Academy

A Dinosaur Nest Has Been Discovered in the Classroom

Dinosaur eggs spotted at John Locke Academy. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: John Locke Academy/Everything Dinosaur

During the workshops we were able to encourage the children to think of some amazing describing words as we examined the teeth and jaws of carnivores. Impressive pre-knowledge was demonstrated by a number of the children. If our dinosaur expert ever gets stuck whilst studying a fossil, we now know who to get in touch with.

To contact Everything Dinosaur to learn more about our outreach work: Email Everything Dinosaur.

As part of Everything Dinosaur’s support for the varied and challenging scheme of work that had been developed by the enthusiastic teaching team, we were able to provide some colourful dinosaur themed word mats and a useful pronunciation guide, so that the grown-ups could keep up with all the budding palaeontologists.

All to soon, it was time for our dinosaur expert to say goodbye, as each of the classes lined up in very smart, straight lines there was just time for a special “T. rex” finger wave!

Everything Dinosaur stocks a large range of dinosaur themed toys, gifts and games which have all been tested and approved by our enthusiastic teaching team.

To view the range of prehistoric animal themed gifts available from Everything Dinosaur, including replicas of iconic animals from the fossil record: Dinosaur Gifts.

23 02, 2016

More Papo Dinosaur Word Mats

By Mike|2023-04-13T17:48:37+01:00February 23rd, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, General Teaching, Key Stage 1/2|Comments Off on More Papo Dinosaur Word Mats

More Papo Dinosaur Themed Word Mats for Schools

Such has been the response from teachers and teaching assistants after Everything Dinosaur introduced some Papo dinosaur themed word mats for use in schools, that this free to download range has been extended to include two more dinosaurs. Joining the Velociraptor, Triceratops, Stegosaurus and T. rex will be a Spinosaurus and a Brachiosaurus word mat, all helping to encourage Primary school children with their language development.

The Carnivore Spinosaurus Joins the Everything Dinosaur Word Mat Range

Papo dinosaur world mat featuring Spinosaurus.

Papo Spinosaurus word mat.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Word Mats

These Papo dinosaur word mats are a free downloadable resource for use in schools. They can be laminated and placed on classroom tables to help encourage children to develop their vocabulary. In addition, these colourful and informative word mats can be used in classroom displays.

To request a Papo dinosaur word mat, whilst stocks last: Contact Everything Dinosaur.

Already, a number of schools have benefited from these free to download dinosaur themed teaching resources. A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented:

“We have teamed up with Papo to create these teaching resources. The children love the wonderful Papo models that are featured on the mats and we have used our teaching knowledge in combination with our dino expertise to develop word mats that encourage children to develop a love of language and to gain confidence with using and writing words.”

To view the range of Papo prehistoric animal figures available from Everything Dinosaur: Papo Prehistoric Animal Models.

The Papo Brachiosaurus Model Features on the Word Mats

A Papo Brachiosaurus dinosaur word mat.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

17 02, 2016

Dinosaur Notebook to Encourage Writing

By Mike|2023-04-13T07:12:13+01:00February 17th, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, General Teaching, Key Stage 1/2|Comments Off on Dinosaur Notebook to Encourage Writing

A5 Dinosaur Notebook

New in stock at Everything Dinosaur is this super, child-friendly, dinosaur themed notebook. Helping to encourage children with their hand-writing is one of the principle aims of Everything Dinosaur and this eighty page notebook, with built in ruler and ball point pen has got all our dinosaur experts excited.

Note Down Your Dinosaur Discoveries Here

A dinosaur notebook.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Notebook

Ideal for young dinosaur fans, this prehistoric animal themed notebook has illustrations of iconic fossils on the front. One of the budding young palaeontologists stated that there was “definitely a skull Tyrannosaurus rex” and who are we to argue. This is a super quality notebook made from recycled materials. It is great for encouraging writing and great for the environment too.

The front cover (that features the dinosaur skulls), is made from recycled cardboard and the inner pages (80 lined pages), are also made from recycled kraft paper. At a weight of 80 gsm, the paper is the same weight as most sheets used in schools, so they make an excellent writing medium. A ballpoint pen is included in the notebook set, it is held securely in place on the inside of the back cover, so there is no chance of this pen getting misplaced.

The pen in our set was black ink and the children had no problems at all writing with it. The plastic part of the pen is also made from 90% recycled materials, so we can tick the environmentally friendly box with this item, that’s for sure.

Helping to Encourage Writing

The children found the pen easy to grip and the lines on the pages were just about the right spacing to help the children with their note taking, making the writing legible. One of our younger testers was able to use the notepaper without any problems, carefully ensuring a finger space between each of the words that they had written. There were lots of lovely examples of writing produced, and it was pleasing to see some excellent punctuation too, not just capital letters and full stops but commas and even one example of quotation mark usage.

To view Everything Dinosaur’s range of dinosaur themed school stationery and other products: Prehistoric Animal Toys and Gifts.

Dinosaur Notebook to Encourage Writing

This new A5-sized dinosaur notebook has been added to our portfolio of dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed writing materials, notebooks and notepads, part of the extensive school themed range from Everything Dinosaur. Ideal for young dinosaur fans to help encourage them with their school work. Take a dinosaur to school or out on your own dinosaur hunting adventures with dinosaur themed stationery. Part of the extensive range of dinosaur and prehistoric animal themed school products including dinosaur stationery, dinosaur lunch bags, backpacks, pens and pencils, just about everything a young palaeontologist needs for school.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Everything Dinosaur.

13 02, 2016

Exclusive Dinosaur Word Mats Help Children

By Mike|2024-05-05T18:57:36+01:00February 13th, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, General Teaching, Key Stage 1/2|Comments Off on Exclusive Dinosaur Word Mats Help Children

Free Dinosaur Themed Word Mats to Download

Everything Dinosaur has teamed up with the prehistoric animal model makers Papo to create a set of dinosaur themed word mats to help inspire children to increase their vocabulary. These handy teaching aids are available as free downloads and have been designed by members of Everything Dinosaur’s teaching team.

Educational Dinosaur Themed Word Mats

A dinosaur word mat for the Jurassic herbivore Stegosaurus.

A word mat for the Jurassic herbivore Stegosaurus.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

In total, a set of five dinosaur themed word mats have been developed, all aimed at helping to give children more confidence with literacy and language skills as they study dinosaurs as a term topic. Take for example, children in Year 1 and Year 2. Many schools include a topic about dinosaurs in the teaching curriculum and enthusiasm for prehistoric animals can help boost reading and writing skills. In literacy, the children will be starting to form more complex sentences and to produce non-fiction based writing. Exposure to a topic all about dinosaurs will provide opportunities for the children to get to grips with more challenging words.

A Tyrannosaurus rex Inspired Dinosaur Word Mat

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

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Word Mats

These very handy dinosaur themed word mats can be downloaded for free by contacting Everything Dinosaur team members: Email Everything Dinosaur.

The dinosaur themed word mats have been designed to illustrate different types of dinosaur. They also provide information on diet and the handy timeline indicates when the dinosaur lived. Everything Dinosaur team members have developed a variety of dinosaur word mats, including word mats depicting herbivores and carnivores as well as dinosaurs from the Cretaceous and the Jurassic.

To purchase Papo dinosaur models for use in schools: Papo Dinosaur Models.

12 02, 2016

Reception Class with a SpecialTerm Topic on Dinosaurs

By Mike|2024-05-05T18:36:16+01:00February 12th, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception|Comments Off on Reception Class with a SpecialTerm Topic on Dinosaurs

Dinosaurs as a Term Topic for EYFS

In the EYFS classes the teaching team strives to develop lifelong learning skills. At this stage in the child’s education, gaining confidence with reading and writing will be at the top of the educational agenda. Dinosaurs as a half-term or full-term teaching project can really help to stimulate the interest of the pupils in literacy and numeracy. As our dinosaur expert states during briefings with teachers, prior to a dinosaur workshop, when teaching about prehistoric animals the teachers are “pushing at an open door.”

Most children love to learn about dinosaurs, these long extinct reptiles that once dominated our planet. During the EYFS years children need to develop good listening and attention skills along with understanding. Helping to encourage children to speak in front of one another to explain thinking and understanding. EYFS children generally love talking about dinosaurs and expressing views about their favourite prehistoric animals.

A Dinosaur Display at a Reception Class

Children enjoy learning about dinosaurs.

Lots of literacy and numeracy activities displayed.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Help the pupils to form their own sentences, encourage writing, trying to incorporate finger spacing, capital letters and full stops. At this stage in the educational programme the children will be encouraged to read and write words using phonic knowledge. Dinosaur stories as fiction stories can help this and the children can be exposed to non-fiction texts about dinosaurs as well. Challenge the children to write their own non-fiction page about a dinosaur that can then be incorporated into a class topic book all about prehistoric animals.

To view the range of dinosaur themed toys and gifts available from Everything Dinosaur: Prehistoric Animal Models, Toys and Gifts.

Dinosaur Workshops in School

Everything Dinosaur provides a range of dinosaur workshops and our experts deliver tailor-made lesson plans to support the teaching team with their learning objectives. We also provide plenty of extension activities and other resources to help support the scheme of work for the classroom.

For more information about Everything Dinosaur’s work helping to teach about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals: Contact Everything Dinosaur.

Dinosaurs as a term topic can really help EYFS develop lifelong learning skills.

9 02, 2016

Creative and Artistic Dinosaur Themed Lessons for Reception

By Mike|2024-05-05T18:34:15+01:00February 9th, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, General Teaching|Comments Off on Creative and Artistic Dinosaur Themed Lessons for Reception

Reception Classes Learn About Dinosaurs and Fossils

As Everything Dinosaur team members visit schools to conduct dinosaur themed workshops we get the opportunity to view some of the amazing teaching work going on in classrooms. Take for example, our visit to Higher Openshaw Community School to work with the two Reception classes. A very enriching and creative scheme of work had been devised by the teaching team and there were lots of examples of the children’s work on display.

Dinosaur Themed Lessons

Reception Classes Look at Dinosaur Extinction Theories

Reception children explore ideas about dinosaur extinction.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaurs and prehistoric animals as a term topic provides fantastic opportunities to move the children away from free flowing play activities undertaken in the Foundation Stage to more structured learning.

This provides excellent preparation for the move up to Year 1. The Reception children had certainly been having a lot of fun, the scheme of work for the term topic had been carefully crafted by the teaching team.

An Attractive Display

A Wonderful “Wow” Wall with Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals

Dinosaur display with Foundation Stage children.

Miss Burke and the Foundation Stage Two dinosaur display. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Higher Openshaw Community School/Everything Dinosaur

The children had been provided with some real fossils to excavate from the sand tray. This is a great activity to help young minds explore fossils.

To view the amazing range of dinosaur toys and gifts available from Everything Dinosaur: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.

2 01, 2016

Dinosaurs and Fossils Encourage Writing

By Mike|2023-04-10T07:34:19+01:00January 2nd, 2016|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, General Teaching, Key Stage 1/2|Comments Off on Dinosaurs and Fossils Encourage Writing

Dinosaurs and Fossils Encourage Writing

A visit from a fossil expert from Everything Dinosaur can certainly help teaching teams to maintain an interest in hand-writing amongst their charges. Often it can be difficult for the teacher to think of novel and innovative ways to help children expand their vocabularies and to gain more confidence with their written work. A school visitor provides the ideal opportunity for the teacher to set a writing themed activity, composing a thank you letter to the person who came to the school.

A Thank You Letter From Young Dinosaur Fans

Thank you letter received by Everything Dinosaur.

Class RJ’s letter. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To read an earlier article about Everything Dinosaur’s work in schools: Everything Dinosaur’s Teaching in Schools.

Dinosaurs and Fossils

After a visit to the children at Southglade Primary School (Nottinghamshire), the dinosaur expert at Everything Dinosaur, in collaboration with the teachers, set an extension activity. The children were challenged to write a thank you letter and the budding young palaeontologists all rose to the challenge. These types of exercises can prove very beneficial, in addition, with the emphasis on the ICT elements of the curriculum, some of the children could always email a thank you letter to a visitor (so long as permission to do so is obtained first), whilst the remainder of the class can use the more traditional letter writing approach.

Compare and Contrast

This allows the class to compare and contrast the use of email with sending a letter “snail mail”. For example, which missive got the fastest reply?

What are the benefits of email over sending a letter?
Why might sending a letter be the better option on some occasions?

Thank you Alex and your classmates for your fantastic letters.

To contact Everything Dinosaur to enquire about our outreach work and our dinosaurs and fossils themed product range: Contact Everything Dinosaur.