Hi everybody, we are doing a lovely topic about dinosaurs and wondered if anyone has any good ideas of things they have done if they have done a dinosaur topic!
Thanks Lib

Hi Lib -
If you do a search (look at the top right of the screen and click the link marked 'Search Forum posts', then just type in 'Dinosaur') you'll find many discussions about dinosaurs. Here's one I found with quite a few planning attachments.

We did dinosaurs before christmas and a couple of activities stood out.

Dinosaur teeth-made out of clay with a hole punched through, threaded onto a necklace to play a joke on our families!
IAWB-I downloaded a couple of black and white skelton images of dinosaurs and the children drew the dinosaur shape around
Using the Elmer milk carton idea we did dinosaurs heads

Our children enjoyed making plaster mould dinosaurs and then painting them with wonderfully imaginative colours! We had some lovely paintings of dinosaurs and I made some spot the difference sheets which were really useful for assessing children's understanding of same/different. (Which I may still have somewhere if you want me to search) We did some dinosaur dancing to 'Carnival of the animals' music - some wonderful imaginations there.
We made footprints with the plastic dinosaurs in dough, made dino's in dough and used a sand tray with soil in to make a dinosaur world with bits of greenery, pebbles etc from the garden.

A few years ago we made dinosaur 'puppets' from cereal bar boxes which the children loved - especially at the end when they could make very loud dinosaur noises. I wasn't that happy with it as an activity for pre-schoolers (a bit too adult led for my liking), but the children did enjoy decorating their dinosaurs and playing with them afterwards.

Won't go into the detail of how to make them here but if you're interested I can provide instructions!

Maz

Hi this is my very first post and I am very new to EYFS - even though I have taught Year 1 for 10 years. We are currently doing dinosaurs so here are the activities that we have covered - I hope you found them helpful.
I put plaster of paris into the bottom of the sand tray and laid plastic dinosaurs into the top. When is was dry I covered the dinosaurs with sand and the children had a great time pretending to be fossil hunters.
We covered ballons with mod roc and made giant dinosaur eggs
We used the tuff spot and turned it into a dinosaur swamp - we added macaroni to it as well and the children made their own skeletons in the swamp
We learnt the words to The Prehistoric Brigade
Books we have used have been; Dinosaur Stomp - great for PE, Dinosaurs and all that rubbish - great for bringing in recycling, Harry and his Bucketful of dinosaurs - good for talking about losing something. We have also watched Prehistoric Park and Walking with Dinosaurs - they absoloutely loved them.
we used 2 paint to paint a picture of a dinosaur - we also made a dinosaur jacket for the Pixie and sent him on a journey
We dug chocolate chips from from cookies to show how careful you need to be when digging for bones - we used cocktail sticks
I made 1 minute playdough - fantastic stuff- and the children pushed shells and stones into it to look like fossils
We used art straws to create a skeleton picture of dinsoaurs
We used polysterene tiles and carefully used a pencil to push a picture into it - we then made mono prints with it
In Literacy we; labelled dinosaurs; wrote similies like My dinosaur is as green as..... ( I thought they would find this difficult but they were really good at it!) We wrote a poem, acted out stories, created menus for dinosaurs favourite foods and wrote 'Lost' posters and the children used descriptive words.
All of my maths was related to dinos but one thing we did do was measure the biggest dinsoaur ever recorded on the playground - their faces were a picture!!
We also adopted an animal from the WWF website, after talking about extinction they decided they wanted to help other animals.
And lastly we visited the Natural History Museum - dinosaurs by the plenty!!! That trip provided us with untold opportunties across the curriculum.
The role play area became a dinosaur museum - we put the sand in there with a camera, microscope and magnifying glasses, and metal detectors.
We made dinosaur shaped biscuits and created our own swampwater punch with different fruit juices.
I hope thats been a little helpful - I have video footage of the moving T-rex at the museum that I could send you if you would like.
I am sure you are coming to the end of your topic now and probably don't need this now, but only joined the forum recently and am just getting the hang of it!!!! I would offer to send my planning but being so new to EYFS I dont think I am even doing right!!!
The children have loved the topic - it was one they had chosen themselves - and I have learnt a lot too!!
Good luck
Nicky

Welcome Nickynooblue, and congratulations on your first (and very informative) post. Looking forward to hearing more from you soon!

Songs?

To 'wheels on the bus'
The dinosaurs in the woods go (make fists and stomp on knees) stomp stomp stomp
all day long
The dinosaurs in the sky go (arms wide) flap flap flap
The dinosaurs in the sea go (palms of hands together in front of body) swim swim swim

to the tune of 10 green bottles
5 big dinosaurs, playing in the breeze
5 big dinosaurs, playing in the breeze
and if one big dinosaur (hands over eyes) hid between the trees
there'd be 4 big dinosaurs playing in the breeze...

Hi Nickynooblue, A warm welcome to the forum from me too, what a fantastic first post, great ideas which sound like lots of fun had by all.

Peggy

Found them

Here's my spot the difference dinosaurs - ranging from easy peasy to 'ooh, Mrs Faulkner!'

Ooh and one of the Bob the Builder computer games had a 'build a dinosaur skeleton' game, which was fantastic for mouse manipulation, hand/eye stuff and the children printed out the picture at the end. I did a Ctrl/PrtSc too of the skeleton being built and we printed those out - so parents had some understanding of what the child had actually done

Hi Nicky,

I've been looking for some dinosaur ideas and I'll certainly use some of your, they're fab! I just wondered if you took any photos of your role play area? I'd really like to develop mine into a dinosaur museum but not really sure how I can include activities for the children. How did you incorporate the metal detector? I've just got one and looking for a way yo use it! Also, I'd be really grateful if you could upload the video from the dinosaur museum

Thank you
K

Afternoon K,
I have tried to upload the video but it won't do it - if you send me your direct email address I will pass it to you. I managed to get some metal teeth from a well known auction site! that was how we used the metal detectors - we buried them in the sand in the dirt outside. I also attached small magnets to dog biscuits and the children retrieved them with a large magnet. I also attached paper clips to dinosaur names which the children retrieved and then matched up to a picture of a dinosaur. I don't have a photo without the children in it - sorry but I will try to describe it to you. We used our normal frame and covered it in backing paper. The children then used art straws to make skeletons which we stuck to the backing board. We had a section with a shop and the entrance with a till/phone/scanner where we priced up the different dinosaurs we had brought in at the other end of the role play area was the sand where the children dug for fossils. We watched clips of curators at museums and the children dressed up and showed 'tourists' around so I also had rucksacks/cameras and passports in there too. I had pictures of dinosaur fossils/magnifying glasses and a microscope too; some big dinosaur posters and explorers hats. When he had made our gigantic eggs I also made a nest and put them in the role play area for chiildren to label. I also managed to get hold of some dinsoaur outfits and puppets so they went in there too. Think thats about it!!! If I can think of any more I will pass it onto you.

Hello there

Help please with metal detectors. I recently bought a toy one which proved to be completely useless. Shame, I had big plans for it. Any ideas where can I get one that works? Are we allowed to even discuss brands??!!

Don't see why not - and welcome to the forum if I haven't already. Have you tried ebay? or Amazon?

Welcome to the Forum Dellacat - I seemed to have missed your first post.

I hope you took the toy one back - what's the point of a toy metal detector that doesn't work? I think I've seen one in the Science Museum range, but other than that I can't help really. Someone on here is sure to have one and have planned great activities around it though!

Hope you make yourself at home!

Maz

PS If I'm wrong a friendly moderator will tell me but I am sure its ok to mention brand names - so long as you don't say anything untrue, derogatory or defamatory about the product or the company!

Hi K - haven't forgotten to send the bits - I just can't get it to go!! It helps having a husband who works for PC world he is going to look at it later and send it to you.
Regards
Nicky

Hi Dellcat - I got mine from the TTS catalogue and they work great - the web address is www.tts-shopping.co.uk If you haven't discovered this company before get ready to spend some serious money!!!!!!!!!!
Regards
Nicky

That soes sound handy Thank you

hi there. really loved your fab ideas. have tried to send you a message but am completely rubbish with finding how to do all this! did it go to the right place? if not, could you reply by the forum? have you got any good ideas for Ourselves?? am in a Nursery. AND we are doing ARTS week soon in Sept as a whole schgool and need to contribute something from Nursery based round Ourselves topic. any ideas for a spectacular display/contribution to show rest of school ie junior teachers!! that we CAN do something good in Nursery!!!!

hello there your ideas seem fantastic could you please send me your photos of the dinosaur museam. I am on my final teaching block and would really liket o change the role play into dinosaur museam but uncertain how to go about it

thanks