Teaching - Part 57

28 02, 2015

EYFS at Purston Infant School Learn All About Dinosaurs

By Mike|2023-03-24T16:01:24+00:00February 28th, 2015|Categories: Educational Activities, Teaching|0 Comments

Foundation Unit Studies Dinosaurs

It was an exciting Friday for the children at the Foundation Unit at Purston Infant School (West Yorkshire) as yesterday, they had a visit from Everything Dinosaur to help them learn all about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. The two classes of Lower Foundation Stage along with the two classes of Upper Foundation Stage have been learning about dinosaurs and there was lots of colourful artwork on display around the classrooms.

One of the Colourful Dinosaur Inspired Displays at the School

Colourful prehistoric animals. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Foundation Unit Studies Dinosaurs

The children have two beautiful, giant dinosaur eggs to look after. Both the eggs were made from paper mache. In discussion, with the teaching team we suggested that an extension activity could involve the children thinking about what sort of animals lay eggs/do not lay eggs.

Perhaps a classroom display could be created with the children being encouraged to list the types of animals they know that lay eggs. Can the children sort and group the animals that they have thought of? For example, those with scales, those with feathers, those that can fly etc. What might a dinosaur nest be made off? Can the children sort out different types of material and work out which materials would be good/would not be good to line a nest for a dinosaur egg?

A Giant Dinosaur Egg in a Classroom

A big, blue dinosaur egg. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

A Dinosaur Workshop

Under the enthusiastic tutelage of the teachers and their support staff the children were certainly enjoying this term topic and there was lots of evidence on display of the children enjoying a broad based, varied activity topic. The Lower Foundation Stage children had a wonderful sensory bin filled with sand and small stones as well as dinosaur skeletons for them to explore. In addition, dinosaur models had been made using all sorts of household odds and ends, helping the children to learn about the properties of different materials.

The older children in the two Upper Foundation Stage classes (Monkeys 1 and Monkeys 2) had been busy painting their favourite dinosaurs and there was lots of expressive artwork posted up around the classroom as well as plenty of evidence of vocabulary development.

Fossil Themed Counting Activities

During the dinosaur workshops with the children, our dinosaur expert encouraged the children’s confidence with counting by introducing simple dinosaur fossil themed counting activities all developed with the aim of helping the budding young palaeontologists to improve their confidence in counting and their understanding of numbers.

Enabling Children to Explore and Play Using a Wide Range of Media

Using different media, important in learning and development. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Our dinosaur expert, promised to email over some more extension resources to help support the scheme of work prepared by the dedicated teaching team, one of whom stated “the children were very responsive and enjoyed looking at all the resources”.

To view the range of prehistoric animal toys and games stocked by Everything Dinosaur: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.

27 02, 2015

EYFS Children at Purston Infants School Learn About Dinosaurs

By Mike|2023-03-24T15:56:48+00:00February 27th, 2015|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception|Comments Off on EYFS Children at Purston Infants School Learn About Dinosaurs

EYFS Learn About Dinosaurs

Children in the Foundation Unit at Purston Infants School (West Yorkshire), have been learning all about dinosaurs this term. The enthusiastic teaching team have been busy arranging lots of imaginative activities for the children in Lower Foundation Stage, including a super sensory bin full of pebbles and sand plus little plastic dinosaur skeletons for the children to explore.

Children Learn About Dinosaurs

Colourful prehistoric animals.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

EYFS Learn About Dinosaurs

The fossil expert who visited the school to conduct dinosaur workshops with the children in the Foundation Unit, knows the skeleton models very well. These little plastic skeletons are great for creative, imaginative play and these skeletons featured in a picture project involving Everything Dinosaur who were challenged to create a “dinosaur bone bed”.

An Imaginary Dinosaur Bone Bed

A dinosaur sensory play area for the children. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaur Sets

The plastic dinosaur sets that Everything Dinosaur supplies features twelve different prehistoric animals, children really enjoyed searching for their very own dinosaur skeletons.

To see the range of teaching resources supplied by Everything Dinosaur, including replicas of iconic fossil animals: Educational, Dinosaur Themed Toys and Games.

Both the Lower Foundation Stage and the Upper Foundation Stage classrooms had lots of dinosaur displays. Some children had even made models of prehistoric animals and there were some lovely dinosaur paintings posted up on the walls.

Colourful Dinosaur Inspired Pictures

A decorative dinosaur wall display spotted at the school helping EYFS to learn about dinosaurs. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Budding Palaeontologists

The eager, budding young palaeontologists were keen to demonstrate their knowledge telling our expert all about carnivores and herbivores (well done to Paddy for a fantastic explanation). The younger children learned that fossils tend to feel cold and that some fossils are small and light, whilst other fossils particularly those of dinosaurs tend to be very big or even “massive” as one child exclaimed as our dinosaur expert encouraged the children to think of “wow words” to describe dinosaurs.

Praising the Everything Dinosaur team member who conducted the workshops, one of the teacher’s stated: “An enjoyable experience, the children were very responsive and enjoyed looking at the resources.”

23 02, 2015

Withinfields Primary School Studies Amazing Dinosaurs

By Mike|2024-05-04T22:04:25+01:00February 23rd, 2015|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, General Teaching|Comments Off on Withinfields Primary School Studies Amazing Dinosaurs

Dinosaur Workshops at Withinfields Primary School

Schoolchildren study dinosaurs and are helped by team members from Everything Dinosaur.

Another busy day for the teaching team at Everything Dinosaur. Our dinosaur and fossil experts were asked to visit Withinfields Primary in sunny, but cold West Yorkshire. The Nursery classes and Foundation Stage Two children had just started a topic all about dinosaurs and life in the past, so we came along to help enthuse and motivate the children. When working with a school at the start of a topic, we like to deliver what we call a “provocation session”, inspiring the teachers and children and giving them all the chance to handle fossils and to learn about dinosaurs and other amazing creatures from the past.

Schoolchildren Study Dinosaurs

We do our best to answer all the questions from the children and the teaching team. One question today was really special, we were asked how big were the plates on the back of a Stegosaurus? What a super question!

How Big were the Plates on the Back of a Stegosaurus?

How many hands? Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Everything Dinosaur

Fortunately, we have lots of information about Stegosaurus (and other armoured dinosaurs for that matter). We answered the question and then gave the children one of our “pinkie palaeontologist challenges”. We asked them to work out how big the plates were and what size Stegosaurus might have grown to by using some extension resources we sent over to the school via email after we had got back to the office.

We hear the children loved looking at the fossils and learning all about Stegosaurus. A team member from Everything Dinosaur thanked the teacher and the teaching assistants for their wonderful feedback.

Everything Dinosaur stocks an extensive range of dinosaur and prehistoric animal, educational toys and games. To view the selection available from Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning website: Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.

21 02, 2015

New Study Suggests Evolution Favours Getting Big!

By Mike|2024-04-18T21:49:07+01:00February 21st, 2015|Categories: General Teaching, Key Stage 3/4|Comments Off on New Study Suggests Evolution Favours Getting Big!

Cope’s Law Tested by Extensive Study of Marine Fauna

A team of scientists from Stanford University drafted in students to help them trawl through a huge amount of data on extinct and extant marine fauna to see whether Cope’s Law can be verified, that evolution favours getting big. Edward Drinker Cope (1840-1897), was an American palaeontologist and naturalist who explored the fossil deposits of the western United States and is most famous for discovering and excavating a number of significant dinosaur specimens. He postulated that evolution favoured the development of larger organisms, that is the descendants of a species were usually larger than the ancestors. He cited the evolution of the horse (equines) in support of his assertion.

Evolution Favours Getting Big

The scientists as Stanford University (California), employed undergraduates and students to examine measurement data published on 17,000 different marine genera dating back to the Cambrian geological period to see if Cope’s Law applied.

Does Evolution Favour “Bigness”? In the Dinosauria Perhaps?

Dinosaurs tended to get bigger over time. Is Cope’s Law correct? Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

To read more about this research: Evolution Favours Getting Big.

The study published this week in the academic journal “Science” concluded that over the last 542 million years (since the Cambrian geological period), the mean size of marine fauna had increased by 150 times. This research may prove helpful to teachers as they teach about evolution in schools.

For dinosaur models and figures, plus replicas of other prehistoric animals: Dinosaur Figures and Prehistoric Animal Models.

20 02, 2015

Mary Anning Has New Species of Ichthyosaurus Named in Her Honour

By Mike|2023-03-24T12:08:44+00:00February 20th, 2015|Categories: General Teaching|Comments Off on Mary Anning Has New Species of Ichthyosaurus Named in Her Honour

Mary Anning Honoured by Palaeontologists

Mary Anning the 19th century amateur fossil hunter from Lyme Regis, has been honoured by having a new species of Ichthyosaurus named after her. Ichthyosaurs were ancient, marine reptiles that lived during the Mesozoic and the evolved sometime in the Early Triassic. Superficially resembling modern-day dolphins, these reptiles, only distantly related to the dinosaurs, were superbly adapted to live in the sea, although they did evolve from terrestrial animals.

New Species of Ichthyosaurus

Perfectly Adapted to a Marine Environment – The Ichthyosaurs

CollectA Temnodontosaurus platyodon model.

Detailed Ichthyosaur figure. Temnodontosaurus platyodon.

The picture above shows a model of a species of Ichthyosaur called Temnodontosaurus platyodon. It had a streamlined body, fins, a powerful tail-fluke and these creatures did not have to return to land to lay eggs, they were viviparous (producing live young).

Ichthyosaurus anningae

The Ichthyosaurus named in honour of Mary Anning is called – Ichthyosaurus anningae, the name means “Mary Anning’s Fish Lizard”. It was Mary and her brother Joseph who in 1811, found the fossilised remains of the first Ichthyosaurus to be scientifically studied.

The Fossilised Remains of Ichthyosaurus anningae

A new species of Ichthyosaurus.

Picture credit: Palaeontologist Dean Lomax and Judy Massare

To read a more complete article about this new species of Ichthyosaurus to be named, the first named in nearly 130 years: New Ichthyosaurus Species Named (Mary Anning Honoured).

The fossil pictured above had been mistaken for a plaster cast replica, but it has now been realised that this specimen excavated from Dorset’s famous “Jurassic Coast” represents a new species.

For models and replicas of ichthyosaurs and other marine reptiles: PNSO Age of Dinosaurs Figures and Models.

19 02, 2015

Exploring Astonishing Dinosaurs at Hadfield Infant School

By Mike|2024-05-04T21:51:08+01:00February 19th, 2015|Categories: Educational Activities, Main Page, Teaching|0 Comments

Foundation Stage/Year 1/Year 2 Study Dinosaurs and Fossils – Exploring Dinosaurs and Fossils

Children at Hadfield Infant School have had a busy day learning all about dinosaurs, fossils and life in the past. The children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 have started a term topic all about prehistoric animals. Some of the children found a “dinosaur egg” in their classroom, what type of dinosaur could have laid such a big egg?

Exploring Dinosaurs

The egg had started to hatch and sure enough, the children had a baby dinosaur to look after. We hope that they will learn all about dinosaur plant-eaters and meat-eaters so that they can work out what to feed it!

The Dinosaur Egg in One of the Classrooms

Schoolchildren discover dinosaur egg. A teaching resource for a dinosaur and fossils term topic. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

What if the Dinosaur Escapes?

What would happen if the baby dinosaur escaped one evening? Where would the dinosaur go? Can the children follow the dinosaur’s travels around the world?

Our dinosaur expert felt very much at home at the school today. On the wall in the hall where he had been working was a big picture with lots of bones in it. The children learned that scientists look at the fossilised bones of dinosaurs so that they can work out what they looked like and how they lived.

A Great Backdrop for a Dinosaur Workshop

Learning all about fossil bones of dinosaurs. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Everything Dinosaur Answering Questions

With the enthusiastic support of the teaching team the children will have a wonderful and engaging topic to study up to the end of the spring term. There were so many amazing questions asked during the day, questions such as what was the biggest crocodile of all time? How big were the plates on the back of Stegosaurus? Good job the children had been working on their phonics to help them work out the difference between big, bigger and biggest.

We sent over some extension resources to help the teaching team answer some of the questions that we did not get round to in our dinosaur workshop. We think this term topic is going to be a “roaring success”!

To view Everything Dinosaur’s website: Everything Dinosaur.

19 02, 2015

Children at Hadfield Primary Learn About Fossils

By Mike|2023-03-24T07:39:34+00:00February 19th, 2015|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception, Key Stage 1/2|Comments Off on Children at Hadfield Primary Learn About Fossils

FS2, Year 1 and Year 2 Learn About Dinosaurs and Fossils

Helping pupils to learn about dinosaurs and fossils.

Learn About Dinosaurs

Everything Dinosaur took over the hall at Hadfield Infant School today as they delivered a set of dinosaur themed workshops aimed at Foundation Stage 2 and Lower Key Stage 1 children. The workshops were very visual and tactile and involved lots of physical activities as well as fossil handling. The back drop to the dinosaur workshop was very appropriate as the children had been working on a previous term topic all about the human body and there were lots of drawings and artwork of “funny bones” posted up onto one of the walls.

A Wonderful Backdrop for a Dinosaur Workshop

Learning all about fossil bones of dinosaurs. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

It was certainly an exciting day for the children, the teachers enjoyed themselves too.

Children Loved Looking at the Fossils

One EYFS teacher stated that the “children loved looking at the fossils”, whilst another described the dinosaur workshops conducted by Everything Dinosaur as “a great start to our dinosaur topic”.

Commenting on the day of prehistoric animal fossil themed activities, the dinosaur expert from Everything Dinosaur stated:

“We wanted the sessions to act as a provocation to enthuse the children and help to inspire the teaching team. A number of exciting extension activities have already come out of the workshops and we will be emailing over more resources tomorrow to help the teachers with this term topic.”

Everything Dinosaur stocks a wide range of dinosaur themed, educational resources including replicas of iconic fossil animals. To visit Everything Dinosaur’s award-winning and user-friendly website: Everything Dinosaur – Toys and Games.

A spokesperson from Everything Dinosaur added that team members had been preparing additional teaching resources to despatch to the teaching team at Hadfield Primary. These additional teaching materials would be sent out tomorrow to continue our support of the term topic.

12 02, 2015

Everything Dinosaur Team Members Answer Questions About Sensational Dinosaurs

By Mike|2024-05-04T21:53:39+01:00February 12th, 2015|Categories: General Teaching, Key Stage 1/2|Comments Off on Everything Dinosaur Team Members Answer Questions About Sensational Dinosaurs

Encouraging Year 2 and Year 3 with Questions About Dinosaurs

Such was the enthusiasm for the dinosaur term topic with Year 2 and Year 3 pupils that we found ourselves holding an impromptu question and answer session with the classes after each or our dinosaur themed workshops had finished. We were amazed by the questions the children came up with and we did our best to answer them all.

We advised the teaching team to continue the questioning activity after we had left the school. A washing line can be hung up in the classroom with clothes pegs on it. When the children want to ask a question about a dinosaur, simply get them to write it out and then pin it onto the “question washing line”. This is a fun and very visual way for children to compile a list of questions about prehistoric animals as part of a dinosaur themed term topic, but this technique can be applied to any term topic being undertaken by the teaching team.

Prehistoric Animal and Dinosaur Themed Questions Asked

What was the biggest dinosaur?
How do fossils form?
Where did Triceratops live?
Who named all the dinosaurs?
When did the dinosaurs die out?
Why did the dinosaurs become extinct?

These were just some of the amazing questions the children asked us. The ones that we did not get round to, we promised we would provide answers if the children emailed them to us via the school email address, (an extension activity agreed with the teacher to help encourage the children with their ICT projects).

Questions About Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Animals

All about dinosaurs. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

Questions About Dinosaurs

A spokesperson for the teaching team at Everything Dinosaur thanked the children for their questions and stated:

“We will try our very best to answer all the questions that were provided by the children. We might even get round to answering the queries provided by the teaching team too!”

Everything Dinosaur stocks a wide range of educational, dinosaur themed toys, gifts and games. To see the range available: Everything Dinosaur Toys and Gifts.

11 02, 2015

An Exclusive Dinosaur Themed Measuring Idea (EYFS)

By Mike|2024-05-04T21:54:14+01:00February 11th, 2015|Categories: Early Years Foundation Reception|Comments Off on An Exclusive Dinosaur Themed Measuring Idea (EYFS)

Comparing Our Bodies to Dinosaurs – Dinosaur Footprint Measuring Exercise

Whilst on a dinosaur workshop visit to a school in West Yorkshire (Bamford Academy), our fossil expert was given the opportunity to see some of the term topic work undertaken by children in Foundation Stage Two. Artwork and posters on display in and around the classroom indicated that the teaching team had created an imaginative and challenging scheme of work for the children. There was lots of evidence of children exploring the properties of materials, use of numbers and comparing our bodies to the bodies of other animals, including dinosaurs.

A giant footprint (Tyrannosaurus rex) had been made and the children measured the size of this footprint by placing their shoes into the footprint to see how many pairs of shoes would be required to fill it.

A Novel Dinosaur Footprint Measuring Exercise

Measuring and comparing. Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur.

Picture credit: Bamford Academy/Everything Dinosaur

A Dinosaur Footprint Measuring Exercise

The footprint shape is not quite how a large theropod dinosaur’s footprint would have actually looked like. We were able to supply some drawings of real dinosaur footprint impressions from our collection, this helped form an extension, measuring activity as part of our dinosaur workshop visit. Our fossil expert also had to alter some of the text that the teachers had put up, but this did not detract from this excellent and novel teaching idea.

The Foundation Stage Two class thoroughly enjoyed their dinosaur workshop. They enthusiastically took part in the physical activities and one of the teaching assistants stated:

“The fossils were very exciting to touch and hold and the movements and actions made the programme more tactile for Early Years.”

Everything Dinosaur stocks an extensive range of dinosaur themed toys and games including replicas of iconic fossil animals. To view the range available from Everything Dinosaur: Learning – Dinosaur Toys and Games.

10 02, 2015

Bamford Academy Foundation Stage Study Spectacular Dinosaurs

By Mike|2024-05-04T21:54:50+01:00February 10th, 2015|Categories: Educational Activities, Main Page, Teaching|0 Comments

Chicks and Ducklings Learn All About Dinosaurs

For children in the Chicks and Ducklings classes at Bamford Academy, this term has been a very busy one as they have been learning all about dinosaurs, fossils and life in prehistoric times. There were lots of colourful dinosaur themed artwork on display in the classroom and the budding young palaeontologists had looked at dinosaur eggs and pinned up many different types of prehistoric animals on the classroom’s “WOW” wall.

Class 1 and 2 Have Discovered That There Were Many Different Types of Prehistoric Animal

Lots of different extinct animals on display.

Picture credit: Bamford Academy/Everything Dinosaur

Foundation Stage Study Dinosaurs

Everything Dinosaur’s fossil expert who visited the school was shown where the volcanoes were in the picture and another very knowledgeable child pointed out that dinosaurs laid eggs. During the tactile dinosaur workshop we looked at describing words for dinosaurs and fossils. Real fossils feel cold and hard and some fossils can be really heavy. When it came to considering appropriate describing words for a jawbone from a Triceratops, the children came up with words like “large” and “massive”, it took three of us to carry the jaw round to show the class, our expert was reliably informed that the teeth of Triceratops feel rough!

The children were keen to take part and we had lots of describing words volunteered, one little girl, stated that the tooth of “Tyrannosaurus rex was gigantic!”

Lots of Evidence on Display of Activities to Develop Vocabularies

Lots of describing words for dinosaurs on display.

Picture credit: Bamford Academy/Everything Dinosaur

Comparing Our Bodies to the Bodies of Dinosaurs

A key theme of the teaching topic had been comparing our bodies to those of dinosaurs. The enthusiastic teaching team had come up with a very creative way of demonstrating how big T. rex was. A drawing of the three-toed print of a Tyrannosaurus rex was made and the children counted how many pairs of their shoes would it take to fill up the footprint. The feet of some dinosaurs were very big and it was wonderful to see such a thoughtful method used to demonstrate just how large some dinosaurs were.

Working out the Size and Scale of Some Dinosaurs

Measuring and comparing.

Picture credit: Bamford Academy/Everything Dinosaur

Some dinosaurs really did make enormous footprints. The very biggest dinosaurs made footprints so large that if the track was filled with water a member of Chicks or Ducklings class could have had a bath in it?

Getting to Grip with Dinosaur Footprints

Comparing different types of dinosaur footprint.

Theropod print compared to an ornithopod print.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The picture above shows one of Everything Dinosaur’s teaching aids showing two different types of dinosaur track.

Herbivores and Carnivores

We looked at plant-eaters as well as meat-eaters and the children were keen to demonstrate their knowledge as to what Triceratops and other dinosaurs ate. It is a pity that we did not have any Stegosaurus fossils to show the children as there was a lovely, friendly Stegosaurus painted on one of the walls outside the classroom area. The teaching team had encouraged the children to decorate the plates that ran along this dinosaur’s back and the children had also measured how long this dinosaur was by comparing it to the size of their own hands.

Measuring a Stegosaurus

How many hands?

Picture credit: Bamford Academy/Everything Dinosaur

Dinosaurs as a term topic has certainly proved to be very popular with the children and it was clear that a very effective, creative and challenging scheme of work for this topic had been prepared by the teaching team.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a wide range of educational, dinosaur themed toys and games including replicas of iconic prehistoric animals. To see what is available: Everything Dinosaur Educational Toys, Games and Gifts.