Posted on: February 14th 2014
On Monday 10th February, the Reception children took a break from completing the preparations for their very own Dinosaur Museum, put away the final drafts of their dinosaur fact books, and walked around the corner to St. Andrew’s Church Hall...
Or was it St. Andrews? As we opened the door we were met by a wall of sound - prehistoric roaring, wailing and calling - and the hall was now inhabited by velociraptors, tyrannosauruses, stegosauruses and ferny plant-life. Had we travelled back to the Cretaceous period?Luckily palaeontologist, Graham Woollard, was there to reassure us that the dinosaurs were only scale models from his vast collection. Under Graham’s guidance, the children had a wonderful afternoon, investigating features of the various dinosaurs; sharp meat shredding teeth, long scythe-like claws that some plant eaters used to drag down out-of-reach branches of delicious leaves, the bony spikes on the back of the little mini dinosaur, which we learned were called ‘scoots’!
After pairing up for the challenge of a Dino Hunt, the children were privileged to see, and even handle, some of Graham’s own fossil finds. They were relieved to find that fossilised dinosaur poo was no longer smelly and intrigued by the thought of the tiny baby dinosaur’s bones fossilised inside an egg. Graham even showed us his favourite palaeontology hammer - the one he used to uncover one of his most impressive fossils which is now in the Natural History Museum.
The hands-on experience was a fantastic learning opportunity which really engaged the children. What a wonderful start to our final week working with dinosaurs. The children are really buoyed up now - ready to put the finishing touches to Reception’s Dinosaur Museum, paint their models, display their salt dough fossils, prepare the Swamp Punch for their Dino Café, put up the signs for their Dinosaur Bookshop and then take a well-earned break!
Well done Reception. We are very proud of your incredible hard work!
See photos from Reception’s Dinosaur Workshop, below:
