Key Stage 1 Learn About Continents Using Dinosaurs

Another busy week for the teaching team at Everything Dinosaur.  During one of our school visits to deliver a dinosaur themed workshop to Reception and Key Stage 1 children, we were asked by a member of the teaching team to provide assistance when it came to reinforcing learning about the seven continents.  Luckily, our knowledgeable dinosaur experts had prepared a dinosaur themed geography exercise to help link the geography and science topics together.

Linking a Term Topic About Dinosaurs to Learning About Continents (Geography)

Key Stage 1 – dinosaurs and geography exercise. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Fossils Have Been Found All Over the World

Palaeontologists know that dinosaurs lived all over the world.  The world may have looked very different during the time of the dinosaurs, but fossils of dinosaurs have been found on every continent, even Antarctica.  This evidence proves that dinosaurs lived on all seven continents.  As our dinosaur experts know which kinds of dinosaurs lived where, they can use this information to develop teaching resources to help children learn about geography such as the names and the locations of these continents.

The Dinosaur Geography Exercise

A selection of prehistoric animals in the dinosaur geography exercise.  Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The Key Stage 1 children are challenged to put each of the named dinosaurs onto a map of the world, on the continent where the fossils have been found.  Naturally, we provided a comprehensive lesson plan with all the information the teaching team required to help support the children’s learning.

For dinosaur themed toys and games: Dinosaur Toys and Games.

Developing Locational Knowledge

Under the national curriculum for England, children in Key Stage 1 should develop knowledge about the world and develop a basic vocabulary relating to human and physical geography.  A key requisite is to be able to name and locate the world’s seven continents and five oceans.  Our dinosaur geography exercise cleverly links in this teaching requirement and enables the children to demonstrate their understanding by making links across topic areas.

Helpful Teaching Notes are Provided by Everything Dinosaur

A chart to help kick-start a teaching topic about dinosaurs. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Cross-curricular Learning

In the rich and varied scheme of work for the dinosaur term topic at the school we were visiting, the teachers had included sub-topic areas such as learning about Mary Anning as well as learning about how the Earth has changed since the time of the dinosaurs.  The dinosaur geography exercise that we had developed dove-tailed nicely into the teaching team’s scheme of work.

Visit the Everything Dinosaur website: Everything Dinosaur.

A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented:

“We were able to combine the children’s enthusiasm for learning about dinosaurs with the teacher’s need to ensure that the class could learn about the location of today’s continents.  This was a great way to test understanding and to reinforce learning across different subject areas.”

For further information about Everything Dinosaur’s work: Contact Everything Dinosaur.

Pushing Back the Origin of our Species by 100,000 Years

Fossil hominin remains from the Atlantic coast of Morocco indicate that our species Homo sapiens originated at least 100,000 years earlier than previously thought.  In addition, this north African discovery challenges the idea of eastern Africa as being the “cradle of humankind” – at least in terms of the evolution of our species.

An Early Human Skull Compared to a Modern Human Skull (Homo sapiens)

Comparing Homo sapiens skull material.

Picture Credit: Natural History Museum (London) with additional annotation by Everything Dinosaur

Writing in the academic journal “Nature”, scientists that include lead author professor Jean-Jacques Hublin (Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany), have studied the fragmentary fossilised remains of five early humans and dated these remains to approximately 315,000 years ago.  Previous studies, had suggested that our species originated some 200,000 to 220,000 years ago.

Rewriting the Textbooks

Sixty miles west of the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, the remote cave site of Jebel Irhoud can be found.  The cave roof may have collapsed long ago, but this location has provided extremely important evidence about life in the Pleistocene Epoch.  This notable anthropological site was discovered in 1960, with the first extensive field work being undertaken a year later.  The limestone cave site has yielded a number of fossils of prehistoric mammals as well as bones and stone tools associated with both Neanderthals and our own species.  According to scientists, this new study indicates that the idea that our species evolved in eastern Africa is no longer tenable.  It is more likely that H. sapiens evolved all across the continent.

Professor Hublin stated:

“It is not the story of it happening in a rapid way in a “Garden of Eden” somewhere in Africa.  Our view is that it was a more gradual development and it involved the whole continent.  So, if there was a Garden of Eden, it was all of Africa.”

A Beautifully Preserved Human Jaw

The more than twenty human bones (from five individuals), include a nearly complete lower jaw, plus skull fragments. The material has been dated using several methods and the range of dates produced is between 280,000 to 350,000 years, with the most probable date around 315,000 years.

A Model of a Modern Human (H. sapiens)

A model of modern human being (H. sapiens).

The model (above) is from the Bullyland range of prehistoric animal figures.

To view this range: Bullyland Prehistoric Models and Figures.

Homo sapiens Fossils

The re-dating and the human remains from Jebel Irhoud convinced the research team that early H. sapiens once lived at this location.  The teeth, somewhat bigger when compared with those of modern humans, are a better match to H. sapiens than they are to Neanderthals or other known archaic humans.

The Jebel Irhoud skulls are elongated compared with those of modern people.  This suggests that these individuals’ brains were organised differently when compared to our own.

A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur commented:

“These fossils overturn our ideas regarding the evolution of our species.  In addition, by comparing the skulls, jaws and teeth we can gain a better understanding of how our species Homo sapiens has evolved over the last 300,000 years.  We are not separate from the laws of natural selection, but very much shaped by them.”

Visit the award-winning Everything Dinosaur website: Everything Dinosaur.

Herbivore, Carnivore, Omnivore

One of the key topic areas covered in the Year 2 science curriculum (England), is that pupils should be taught to describe how animals obtain their food.  This permits the teaching team to introduce the concept of the development of simple food chains.  The national curriculum for England gives guidance on science programmes of study, but schools have flexibility in how these key concepts are taught in the classroom.  Dinosaurs and life in the past can provide a class with a highly enjoyable term topic that permits the teaching team to build in a wide range of cross-curricular learning activities.

An Everything Dinosaur Workshop

Designing a Herbivorous Dinosaur – Learning About Food Webs

Our mailbag was full of lovely dinosaur cards.

Picture credit: Great Wood Primary School

Take for example, the term topic recently delivered by the teaching team at Great Wood Primary School (Lancashire), to their charges in Year 2.  Our dinosaur expert observed some excellent examples of non-fiction and fiction writing, along with evidence of non-chronological reporting during his visit to deliver a dinosaur themed workshop at the school.

For dinosaur themed toys and gifts: Prehistoric Animal Toys and Gifts.

A Dinosaur Food Chain

During an hour-long workshop with the Key Stage 1 children, our dinosaur expert introduced a series of extension ideas to help support the scheme of work that had been developed by the teaching team.  One of the topic areas touched upon was establishing the concept that different kinds of animals obtained food in different ways.  In addition, scientists used special terms to describe the diets of animals – herbivores, carnivores and omnivores.

We challenged the children to design their very own prehistoric animal, to label its body parts and to think about what food it might have eaten.  Could they come up with a name to describe their very own dinosaur?  By doing this, we were checking the children’s understanding of the key concepts.

Herbivores, Omnivores and Carnivores in the Dinosauria

A colourful dinosaur drawing from Alice in Year 2 at Greatwood Primary School).

Picture credit: Great Wood Primary School

The children came up with some very creative and imaginative designs.  At the end of the topic, one of the teaching team members sent us examples of the children’s work.  These pictures were posted up onto our warehouse wall and they made a very colourful display.  Having children design their own prehistoric animals is a great way to test understanding and provides an interesting way of demonstrating the key components of food webs, as well as introducing ideas about how animals can adapt to different environments.

Visit Everything Dinosaur’s website: The Everything Dinosaur Website.