Guest Posted April 22, 2012 Share Posted April 22, 2012 Please can anyone help? I am doing a topic of 'dinosaurs' this half-term and in my newsletter I like to give reasons for/learning that may come from the topic. This is a new topic for me, so the first time I have needed to write a 'blurb'. My thoughts are not coming together on this (possibly after a head injury at work last week - whilst checking the safety of the playground prior to outdoor play! ), so any help would be very much appreciated! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredbear Posted April 22, 2012 Share Posted April 22, 2012 When we explored this last year it started from a little boy interested in bones in his body. Then we looked at x-rays and were lucky to borrow a full size skeleton who came to visit. We then looked at fossils and hid miniature dinosaur bones in a plaster of Paris and sand mix and with scraping tools they became excavators, this was so much fun. We played with our dinosaurs in the soft tuff and read the funny bones and dinosaur roar story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoziebell Posted April 22, 2012 Share Posted April 22, 2012 Hi DevonMaid, Hope your head is ok! You could put that you are excited about starting the new topic because it is an area that you have noticed that your children are motivated by. This way you are responding to child-initated interests. You could mention the things that you are hoping to learn about with the children, such as environments and growing, habitats, and diet(?). I always put what the parents can do to help their children with their learning at home such as researching the different types of dinosaurs, what they ate, where they lived. They could make dinosaurs to bring into your setting, they could explore the exciting names that the dinosaurs had and the different footprints they had etc. Hope that helps! x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ChunkyMan Posted April 22, 2012 Share Posted April 22, 2012 Hi...... We are currently doing dinosaurs and are really enjoying learning 'Dinosaur Roar' it has a great rhythm and children loved to use different voices etc. Fredbear - How did you make the plaster of Paris and sand mixture? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 Excellent! We have found many children to be interested in Dinosaurs, which is half the battle. Obviously everybody understands that if a child is interested in a topic they will want to participate more and learn much better. So yes this can be used in many different techniques to teach the interested children. From simply counting with dinosaurs, giving children a cool dinosaur picture to colour, to the more extreme like as mentioned plaster of Paris, which is great and very exciting for the children. You could then expand and use dinosaurs in any environment or subject you want to teach children about, like family life, mother dinosaur, dad the t-rex! etc etc whatever captivates the minds of children, and you will find they will let YOU know all different ideas that can be used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 23, 2012 Share Posted April 23, 2012 Many thanks for all your replies - some lovely ideas! :rolleyes: x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fredbear Posted April 24, 2012 Share Posted April 24, 2012 Hi Chunkyman For this activity we used: Plaster of Paris Fine sand Water Small tools like clay scrapers for them to excavate with. Small plastic tray or small foil disposable baking tray. You will need to either prepare this in advance or make with the children the day before. We made ours inadvance without the children so there was an element of surprise when they began to excavate. Begin by pouring equal amounts of plaster and sand and mix with a little water, continue to add more sand and water for your desired effect. If you are doing it with quite young children you may wish to make the mix more sandy so they are able to scrape away more easily. We bought some miniature dinosaur skeletons and hid those, the children were captivated by this activity, with lots of opportunities for expressive language. Have fun. :1b Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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